The Gap Fire was a fire that burned of the

Santa Ynez Mountains The Santa Ynez Mountains are a portion of the Transverse Ranges, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges of the west coast of North America. It is the westernmost range in the Transverse Ranges. The range is a large fault block of Cenozoic age create ...

above Goleta,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

between July 1 and July 28, 2008. The fire burned primarily on steep slopes above the community of Goleta. Dense brush that had not burned in over fifty years, coupled with steep terrain made the fire challenging for firefighters. Initial efforts by the

Santa Barbara County Fire Department The Santa Barbara County Fire Department (SBCFD) provides fire protection and emergency response services for the unincorporated areas of Santa Barbara County, California, and for multiple cities within the county. Together, these areas compose ...

nearly contained the fire before it broke loose. When the first engine arrive on scene at 5:32 p.m. on July 1, the fire was less than a quarter acre, but then winds came up and swept the fire over the ridge and down into drainage. By July 3 the fire had grown to more than forcing the

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

to declare a state of emergency. During the initial operational periods, the fire was driven downhill by Sundowner winds and burned to the edges of Goleta requiring the multiple strike teams for structure protection. After the initial 48 hours, the winds died down allowing firefighters to begin working in the mountainous terrain to contain the fire.

Power Issues

The fire caused major power issues for residents and businesses in Goleta,

Isla Vista Isla Vista is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Barbara County, California in the United States. As of 2020 census, the community had a population of 15,500. The majority of residents are college students at t ...

, Santa Barbara and even as far south as Montecito.

Southern California Edison Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of ap ...

high voltage transmission lines carrying power to the region pass directly through the area of the fire. During the peak of the outages, over 150,000 customers were reported to be without power.

Relief efforts

Emergency response organization Direct Relief provided 35,000 free NIOSH N-95 particulate respirators to local residents.

References

{{2008 California wildfires 2008 California wildfires Santa Ynez Mountains Wildfires in Santa Barbara County, California July 2008 events in the United States