Fresh crews fighting California fires
Some evacuees started returning home to the area 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
With a heat wave forecast this week, firefighters on the blaze in the Los Padres National Forest tried to take advantage of Monday morning marine fog and a last day of moderate weather, said Stanton Florea, spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.
Officials brought in five "hot shot" crews from Arizona and New Mexico, a total of 100 firefighters who were being dropped by helicopter in the Santa Ynez Mountains or sent hiking in to thin brush and slow the fire's progress, Florea said.
"They're going to try to create a line around the western end," he said.
Other crews were setting backfires to burn brush so there is no fuel for flames to feed on.
"There's a window we can do some of these firings in," Florea said.
The fire had blackened about 15 square miles of the national forest above the city of Goleta, in southern Santa Barbara County, since starting July 1. It was 35 percent contained Monday morning, Florea said.
Officials did not have the number of homes currently affected. At the height of threats to Goleta-area communities, residents of nearly 2,700 homes were told to leave or warned to be ready to flee.
A weekend break in summer heat had allowed firefighters to largely extinguish flames on the southern end of the blaze, where most of the threatened residential areas were.
However, the cooler weather is forecast to give way to 90-degree heat and low humidity this week.
"There's a heat wave setting in," said Jim Andrews, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.com. "Today is still kind of a transition but it will set in in earnest tomorrow."
Investigators believe the fire was human-caused.
Wildfires have blackened more than 800 square miles and destroyed at least 69 homes throughout California, mainly in the northern part of the state, in the past two weeks. One firefighter died of a heart attack.
Sunday's cooler weather also helped firefighters advance on the 2-week-old blaze that has destroyed 22 homes in Big Sur, on the coast at the northern end of the Los Padres forest.
"The fog held on a little bit stronger than was originally anticipated, which was great for the crews out working on the lines," said Sarah Gibson, a spokeswoman for the fire command post.
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