Tea time

Fire1.JPG, originally uploaded by inyopfc.

That orange glow in the center of this photo is the Tea Fire. Last Thursday night this fire was barreling down out of the canyons straight towards Santa Barbara. It ate up a bunch of houses in Montecito, mostly because of the eucalyptus, pine, and palm trees people plant up there. At the time of this photo it was moving straight towards us from about 4 miles away and growing like mad. It could have burned up the whole city, except that the winds died down and some amazing nighttime water-dropping helicopter action knocked the fire down fast once the winds slowed down. I can't even imagine trying to fly a helicopter in 60 MPH winds near an almost vertical wall of mountains.

Anyway, I also have some amazing pics of my trip to Vermont but I haven't had time to blog them yet.