Roger
Photos: Mike Eliason / SBCFD
Update by edhat staff
Santa Barbara County firefighters extinguished a brush fire inside a homeless camp in Goleta on Thursday morning.
Crews responded to reports of smoke just north of The Grove condominium complex in the 7600 block of Hollister Ave around 7:00 a.m. They discovered a large brush fire in a eucalyptus grove near Highway 101 southbound next to the railroad tracks.
The fire had burned approximately 1/4 of an acre before it was extinguished an hour later. Firefighters used foam due to a large amount of debris at the base of the trees. A hand crew then finished up the job to make sure it was fully out.
There were no reported injuries and no one appeared to be in the camp at the time of the fire.
The Amtrak Train was shut down for a short amount of time due to firefighters laying down their hoses on the tracks.
The investigation is ongoing to determine the cause of the fire.
Reported by Roger the Scanner Guy
Vegetation fire off Highway 101 northbound at Winchester Canyon. The fire is in the vegetation and trees. Santa Barbara County Fire Department and Helicopter 308 are responding with a full fire response.
Below photos by A.D.
A hobo spontaneously combusted
The fire is on the rail road tracks North Bound at Winchester…
It appears to be by the NB 101 Winchester offramp. Near the Timbers property. So not at the train track, as that’s south of the 101. SBCFire website lists multiple units dispatched.
After viewing SBCFire.com, it appears the initial report was that the fire was south of the 101 at the train track near The Grove, but first responders realized it was across the freeway near Timbers. There’s a mobile home park nearby.
Another bum camp fire
I hope no butterflies burned….
I have observed some severely overgrown eucalyptus groves in this area. The tree trunks are so close together in some areas that it would be difficult to walk between them. This incident should be a wake-up call to address this problem. These areas need to be cleared, or at a minimum thinned out dramatically. It is fortunate this fire started when it was relatively cool with little wind. However, we have a rapidly increasing population of drug addicts and mentally ill living in these overgrown areas. If we do not take action now to mitigate this hazard, we will see these overgrown eucalyptus groves burn catastrophically. Having said that, I would encourage anyone with property near these overgrown areas to plan for a catastrophic fire. Its a shame some of these groves cannot be thinned and maintained. Instead we will lose them entirely when they burn down.
One more example that our current congressman, Salud Carbajal, fails to protect our coast. He has done nothing to get new federal regulations to prevent this toxic build up along federally regulated railway tracks in his own congressional district. New blood in Congress is badly needed and get someone who actually cares about what is happening right here and right now, right under our noses.. Send Carbajal packing and vote for the other guy Caldwell, who has a clear track record protecting the interests of this district.