Firefighters still face many challenges while fighting the Lake Fire in Santa Barbara County.
“Steep terrain, hot temperatures low relative humidity and that’s causing increased fire behavior,” said Captain Scott Safechuck, Santa Barbara County Fire Department Public Information Officer.
The fire broke out Friday afternoon in the Los Padres National Forest near Zaca Lake. As of Monday, it had burned 20,320 acres.
More than 1,100 firefighters from in and out of the state are battling the Lake Fire.
“The concern is that the fire is continuing to spread easterly into the forest, steeper terrain and less accessible and it’s also moving to the south which is state land which is also difficult to excess,” Safechuck continued.
U.S. Forest Service Public Information Officer Marc Peebles says there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.
“A fire footprint that needs to have containment line cut in and mopped up as well as cleanup. We have structure defense rescue in some of the areas that have some potential threats should the fire continue to move in the south and southeasterly direction,” Peebles said.
He says the fire continued to grow on Monday.
“There is a lot more potential, a little bit higher heat and lower humidity, so we have to be ready for that and we also need to be ready if this fire starts moving,” Peebles said.
Safechuck says the fire is usually easier to fight at night when temperatures cool down, but that’s not the case with the Lake Fire.
“In the last couple of days, we’re not getting cooling and recovering temperatures at night and we’re getting into the more extreme fire behavior in the evening,” Safechuck said.
Crews are working to gain containment first in one specific area.
“Where you have the homes and businesses that are down in the south-easterly part of the fire, so they're working hard in that area to get as much containment line as they can,” Peebles said.
The cause of the Lake Fire is still under investigation.
