SANTA BARBARA — Milder-than-expected winds Thursday allowed firefighters to make some progress against the Jesusita fire, gaining 10% containment by nightfall. But late in the day, officials also expanded the evacuation area to the west, explaining that the wildfire was still spreading and remained unpredictable.
"The fire is going to go where it wants to go. We have to anticipate that," said Drew Sugars, a Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department spokesman.
More than 2,700 acres have burned so far, but fire officials said only about 75 structures were destroyed or damaged, far fewer than might have been expected given winds of more than 50 mph and dense vegetation.
About 2,300 firefighters, as well as 246 engines, 10 air tankers and 15 helicopters, were fighting the fire. The cause remains unknown.
On Thursday morning, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, meeting with fire officials, called the blaze "a great challenge" and promised money for fighting the fire despite a state budget crisis.
"We are 100% behind the people of Santa Barbara," he said.
In Mission Canyon, the century-old Gane House at the 78-acre Santa Barbara Botanic Garden was engulfed in flames, leaving little more than three brick chimneys standing.
"We're very heartbroken," said Nancy Johnson, the garden's vice president of marketing and government relations. "We were hoping to restore it to its grandeur."
Lost inside were all the gardening tools, horticultural materials, the metal shop that made tags to identify plants, the overstock of books published by the garden, and the office contents and computers of the head gardener and facilities maintenance man, Johnson said. Biofuel gardening trucks parked outside also appear to have been destroyed.
On Wednesday, a Santa Barbara County sheriff's search and rescue team saved 13 Ojai seventh- and eighth-graders and their teacher hiking in the backcountry and trapped by the fire, said Sheriff Bill Brown.
A helicopter, using night vision, also located three hikers reported missing in the hills, Brown said.
Residents who remained in their homes when the fire flared up Wednesday described walls of fire and blasts of embers stirred by ferocious winds.
Walter Hildbrand was jubilant Thursday. It was his mother's 90th birthday and the flames hadn't touched her house on leafy Las Canoas Road.
Hildbrand, a 69-year-old former Santa Barbara city firefighter, also saved his own home with a garden hose.
