When the weather cooled down last week, offering relief from record 100-degree heat, Eric Peterson, the Santa Barbara County fire chief, hiked into the foothills of Goleta to the spot where the Holiday Fire was halted on July 6 near the national forest boundary.
At about 10 p.m. that night off North Fairview Avenue, two county fire bulldozer operators, starting from opposite directions, demolished a swath of chaparral about 500 yards long and eight feet wide along a ridgeline and down steep slopes, punching out a “fuel break” to stop the fire. As the flames raced uphill, Peterson said, the men called in an aerial water drop “to keep themselves from getting incinerated.”
“These guys probably would have died, had that helicopter not been there,” Peterson said. “Keep in mind: It’s dark, they’re covered with smoke, there’s embers flying everywhere. They got drenched. But they were able to get in front of this fire and cut it off.”