ZACA FIRE - Fire Perimeters keep growing - A penny wise and a pound foolish..

Forest Service - A penny wise and a pound foolish?..

(CAL FIRE News editorial) Santa Barbra - One million homes are now threatened

The 37,350 acre ZACA Fire Perimeters keep growing and containment has gone down is this fire getting ready to explode? Rumors of a huge 25,000 acre backfire being planned? Is Santa Barbra county in trouble? If weather patterns worsen Santa Barbara could be facing evacuations, structures lost and a horrific firestorm.

An evacuation warning has residents in the Painted Cave Area on alert tonight due to the Zaca Fire. But it's not the first time the Painted Cave area has been on alert.

On June 27, 1990, one of the most destructive fires in Central Coast history started in a residential area in the mountains above Santa Barbara.

The Painted Cave fire burned nearly 5,000 acres, destroyed 400 homes and killed one woman.
The fire caused more than 270 million dollars in damages.

Could it have been prevented?,

And did an attempt at cost cutting lead to this current situation on the ZACA?

And why one million homes are now threatened a month into the uncontrolled Zaca Fire? Fire crews say this blaze has the potential to burn all the way to the Ventura County line.

This could mean mass evacuation of citizens and large numbers of structures lost costing hundreds of millions of dollars in property loss and thousands of lives disrupted.

This fire was being heavily demobilized with cost cutting in mind when she blew out on the late afternoon July 28th growing around 1500 to 2000 acres in just a few hours setting back the containment numbers from 80% to 60% and causing a re-mobilization of resources some of which were being demobilized just hours earlier.

Aircraft, Engines, Dozers, Graders, Water tenders, camp kitchens, tents, toilets and showers everything that was deemed too expensive now being called back at added expense.

The remote access and rugged terrain is requiring a long term strategy that will be implemented over a 5 to 6 week period lets hope the U.S. Forest Service will not be penny wise and a pound foolish..