After two brutal, blistering weeks of burning, the Thomas Fire is finally slowing down.
On Dec. 19, the incident’s command team released an update reporting crews were able to strengthen containment lines due to minimal fire activity the night before.
As of the Sun’s press time, the fire’s size was 271,750 acres, or more than 424 square miles. It was the third largest wildfire in California’s recorded history as of press time, and was expected to outpace 2003’s Cedar Fire—the largest on record—in San Diego County (273,246 acres) by the end of the week. Incident command estimated the total cost to date for fighting the fire at $140 million, with the number expected to rise in the coming weeks.
There have been two known deaths associated with the fire, the most recent on Dec. 14. Cory Iverson, a 32-year-old Cal Fire apparatus engineer from San Diego, was killed in the line of duty that morning.
The diminishing winds were a welcome development for fire crews, who have struggled to keep pace with a fire that made individual runs of 60,000-plus acres in the span of a single day on two separate occasions when it first began.
“It’s just a stubborn fire,” Mike Eliason, Santa Barbara County Fire Department’s public information officer, told the Sun. “It just keeps moving. It won’t go away.”
And conditions are expected to worsen as the week progresses.
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a fire weather watch through Friday, Dec. 22, for Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties.
A low-pressure system was expected to pass through Nevada on Dec. 20, which was forecasted to produce moderate to strong sundowner winds across Santa Barbara County by that evening.
“While humidity should stay above 15 percent, extremely dry fuels and the strong winds can still produce erratic fire behavior,” the NWS statement said.
The winds are expected to turn northeasterly on Thursday and continue through early Friday. Humidity is once again expected to be abnormally low.
“A few hours of critical conditions are likely, especially Thursday afternoon and evening,” the NWS said.
Incident spokespersons reiterated on Dec. 19 that crews were ready for the potential change in conditions.
“Firefighters are not letting their guard down and won’t underestimate the potential that remains with Thursday morning’s wind,” the Ventura County Fire Department wrote on its social media accounts that day.
“We’re just cautiously optimistic,” Eliason said. “We got that wind event coming on Wednesday, and we have to get everybody in position and ready for it and just hope it doesn’t develop.
“I think if we get past Wednesday, we’ll make a turn here,” he added.
This article appears in Dec 21-28, 2017.