Santa Barbara County Fire Department Helicopter 964 airlifted 11 National Park Service employees from Santa Rosa Island on Sunday, moving them to Oxnard Airport without injury as the Santa Rosa Island Fire continued to spread across the remote Channel Islands landscape.
By Sunday evening, the National Park Service said the blaze had grown to 5,692 acres and remained 0% contained. The fire, which started early Friday near Ford Point in the island’s southeastern corner, was still active on both its eastern and western flanks, with flames on the east side reaching East Point and East Point Road and activity on the west side lingering near the South Point Lighthouse. The status of the lighthouse was not known Sunday evening.
The size of the burn and the need to pull workers off the island show how quickly conditions changed. The fire was first reported around 4:30 a.m. Friday by an aircraft flying overhead, and by 3 p.m. federal wildland resources were en route. Dozens of firefighters and park rangers remained on the island Sunday evening, even as the park closed Santa Rosa Island to day and overnight use at least through this week. Water Canyon Campground reservation holders were notified, and the beaches and dunes of China Camp and Cluster Point, and the area between them, were temporarily closed to visitor access except on marked paths.
The National Park Service described the blaze as a full-suppression, human-caused wildfire under investigation. That matters on Santa Rosa Island because the place is not just remote; it is ecologically fragile, home to six plant species found nowhere else on Earth. Crews were focusing on direct attack where safe and preparing an indirect containment strategy if the fire pushes toward Clapp Spring, while a Gale Warning remained in effect until 3 a.m. Monday.
The fire has already destroyed two uninhabited historic structures: Johnson’s Lee Equipment Shed on the western edge of the burn and the Wreck Line Camp Cabin on the eastern edge, along with an additional storage structure next to Johnson’s Lee. The losses are a sharp reminder that this is not a brush fire being watched from a distance. It is burning through a landscape with history in it, and some of that history is already gone.
The island was also the setting for another emergency on Friday morning, when an unidentified boater reportedly crashed a sailboat near the same area. At 9:45 a.m., the U.S. Coast Guard’s Sector Los Angeles–Long Beach coordinated a rescue, and a 67-year-old man was hoisted from shore by an Air Station Ventura helicopter with no injuries reported. For now, the immediate question is not whether the fire is serious. It already is. The question is how much more of Santa Rosa Island can be held before wind, terrain and distance decide the next move.
