Fire investigators have yet to render a verdict on what started the Holiday Fire, but it's clear what stopped it: seven strike teams of firefighters, water-dropping helicopters, and winds calming by around 2 a.m. Hot weather is not unknown for July, but blasting hot winds raised temperatures that night from 102°F to as high as 106°F. Across the front country, the prolonged hours of day-and-night heat and unrelenting wind scorched avocados and lemons, and also livestock.
That Friday's official high of 102°F set a record at Santa Barbara Airport, while thermometers rose as high as 104.5°F in downtown Santa Barbara. The airport, barely a mile from the beach and only 15 feet above sea level, has long been the National Weather Service's official Santa Barbara station. The previous record for July 6 had been 99°F in 1954. The jump from 102°F to 106°F after midnight was registered on an unofficial gauge reporting online from North Patterson at the same elevation as Holiday Hill, 400 feet. Farther south, in the Los Angeles area, all-time heat records were set on July 6, including at Van Nuys Airport, which registered 117°F, surpassing the previous record of 114°F on June 20, 2016.
At Las Varas Ranch in Gaviota, "The wind and the heat were like a blowtorch," said Paul VanLeer. "The fruit sticking out for next year was cooked black, and even the mature fruit inside the tree, out of the direct sunlight, burned and dropped." Temperatures reached 115°F at Las Varas, which lies eight miles west of the fire, and the sundowners gusted 40-50 mph. "I've never seen anything like it," said VanLeer, who's grown avocados for more than 35 years. He estimated three-quarters of the harvest was lost. "About the only benefit I can see," he said wryly, "is the poison oak is a funny color and almost dead."
