A fire on Santa Rosa Island burned 10,029 acres by Sunday night and remained 0% contained, as firefighters on the remote Channel Islands island worked through rugged terrain, difficult communications and powerful winds that had threatened to push the blaze farther north.
The fire was first reported Friday on the Channel Islands National Park site about 26 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, after a man ran his sailboat aground and fired off flares, authorities said. By Sunday night, 70 firefighters were assigned to the incident, with command shared by the National Park Service and the U.S. Wildland Fire Service.
What made the blaze especially hard to fight was not just the size of it, but the ground under it and the sea around it. The fire was burning on the southeastern end of Santa Rosa Island in rugged terrain, while remote access and communications remained challenging. A gale warning was expected to expire at 3 a.m. Monday, after the National Weather Service warned of northwest winds of 20 to 30 knots with gusts up to 40 knots and combined seas of 16 to 21 feet when conditions were at their worst.
By Sunday afternoon, the fire was most active on the eastern edge northeast of Sierra Pablo Peak into Quemada Canyon. On the west side, the fire had moderated substantially but was still burning in the area of the South Point Lighthouse, whose status was unknown. Officials said the blaze was moving toward the northwest and was expected to keep moving northward as the weather shifted Monday.
Two uninhabited historic structures were confirmed destroyed. The Johnson’s Lee Equipment Shed on the western edge was destroyed, along with an additional storage structure nearby, and the Wreck Line Camp Cabin on the eastern edge was also lost.
Federal officials said firefighters were working closely with Channel Islands National Park staff to protect cultural assets and sites, along with the island’s unique plant and animal habitat. They said six plant species are found on Santa Rosa Island and nowhere else in the world, a fact that gave the fire stakes far beyond acreage and containment numbers.
As the fire spread and the winds remained dangerous, federal officials removed all non-fire staff from the island as a precaution on Sunday afternoon. Santa Barbara County Air Support Unit Helicopter 964 evacuated 11 National Park Service employees from Santa Rosa Island the same day.
Additional crews were on order and were expected to reach the island once the winds eased and boating conditions became safer. For now, the fire remains a remote, wind-driven threat on an island better known for rare habitat and historic sites than for emergency evacuations.
