BIG SUR -- — Firefighters continued to gain ground Monday in their battle against a pair of testy wildfires still blazing on opposite ends of a Central Coast national forest.
Hundreds of residents returned to their homes in Goleta as authorities expressed cautious optimism that they had gained the upper hand against the 10,000-acre Gap fire at the southern end of Los Padres National Forest.
On the forest's north end, along the Big Sur coast, the 2-week-old Basin Complex fire had spread to 80,000 acres by evening. However, officials said they were seeing results from creating a line of defense with bulldozers, backfires and aerial attacks using water and fire retardant.
"There's a definite black line of defensible space down the backcountry," Leanne Langeberg, a fire spokeswoman in Big Sur, said of the ribbon of bulldozer paths and controlled burns dividing the blaze from neighborhoods on the scenic coast.
Crews are hustling on both fires to prepare for an expected onslaught of high temperatures, low humidity and potentially gusty winds. Such conditions, which could fan flames anew, are expected to descend on the Central Coast today.
In Goleta, firefighters have managed to create a large swath of dead zone to the south of the Gap fire in Santa Barbara County, robbing the blaze of potential fuel and turning it toward a mountainous, much less populated ranching area in the northwest, officials said. Only 300 of 1,700 homes, mostly to the east and west of the fire, remained under mandatory evacuation by Monday evening.
"This is great. This is a major victory," county Fire Capt. Eli Iskow said. But he cautioned that the fire could easily jump to other wilderness areas at the fire's western edge if winds and temperatures rise.
Fire crews were continuing to cut lines in the area in an attempt to keep the blaze from spreading farther into the Santa Ynez Mountains. The fire, which has destroyed no homes, is 35% contained.
Smoke and heat damaged electrical transmission lines causing power outages in parts of Goleta and Santa Barbara beginning about 8 p.m. Monday.
About 36,000 households sat in darkness as repair crews waited for firefighters who were setting backfires along the main transmission line, said Nancy Williams, a spokeswoman for Southern California Edison.
Along with the higher temperatures, humidity is expected to drop to single digits and winds on the ridge tops could increase. A red flag warning, indicating a high fire hazard, is expected to be issued today and Wednesday.
