Other colleges in the area include the Brooks Institute and UC Santa Barbara.
News about the fire's cause spread rapidly in Montecito and Santa Barbara. Jack Milton, who lost the ocean-view home he had lived in for more than three decades and all of his belongings, said he was angered to learn about the group's apparent carelessness.
"I hope they press charges to deter anyone else from doing something so stupid," Milton said. "Anyone with fire up in those hills is just ignorant."
The Tea fire is hardly the first caused by partyers. Authorities charged five men who started an illegal campfire in a cave in Malibu's Corral Canyon with sparking a November 2007 blaze that razed 53 homes, 35 outbuildings, 37 vehicles and one mobile home.
Residents later sued the state, contending that officials had failed to heed warnings from neighbors about late-night parties and campers causing fire hazards in the area.
In recent years, authorities have stepped up prosecutions of people who caused wildfires, even if they did so accidentally.
On Monday, a mentally ill homeless man was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $100 million in restitution for starting wildfires in 2002 and 2006 that burned more than 162,000 acres in the Los Padres National Forest. Steven Emory Butcher, 50, had been convicted in February of igniting at his campsite the monthlong Day fire that injured 18 people and destroyed 11 structures. He also was convicted of starting the Ellis fire four years earlier.
Last year, two laborers repairing a broken water pipe on a Santa Ynez ranch sparked the Zaca fire, one of the largest in California history. It burned 375 square miles of wilderness in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties and cost $118 million. The men, Santiago Iniguez Cervantes and Jose Jesus Cabrera, were charged with felonies, although a judge recently threw out the most serious charges.
Fire experts noted last year that arsonists were responsible for only 7% of wildfires.
Most were set accidentally, including by power tools close to dry brush, burning trash, untended campfires and downed power lines. Lightning strikes accounted for about 5% of wildfires, authorities said.
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catherine.saillant@latimes.com
jean.merl@latimes.com
