Santa Barbara Tea Fire(Firehawk and other photos)

[swanny338]

While I know it has been.... A long time since I have posted here I figured I would share some photos I stayed up all night taking.

The Montecito area of Santa Barbara has been declared an emergency zone due to extreme wild fires. When it first started last night at about 6pm PST, there were heavy winds that spread this fire over 300 acres in the first couple of hours. It has now devoured 2500+ acres of land and over 130 homes.

While I did shoot some photos of the people and the fire, I mainly focused on my other passion. Aviation.

My main reason for posting this is to get the word out and ask for your thoughts and prayers for the people whose lives are on line. The fire fighters, police and volunteers have been working 24 hour shifts. As I was leaving to get some sleep, I finally saw the ground crew working the fuel truck and water supply for the helicopters get relieved after 12 hours of work.

You can see all of the images here
http://swanny338.com/teafire/pages/swans_tfire_001.htm

[flyboy 28]

Wow Swanny. It's been years since we've seen you around! You used to hang around the Hardware forums, no?

These are fantastic photos. Too bad they had to be taken upon some horrific circumstances.

[MWISimmer]

Very good and all that, and an honourable vocation.

Would you please upload them to SimV HERE , keeping within the 150kb per image/600kb per thread guidelines.

Thankyou, it would be good to keep these photos here.

And welcome back BTW  ;)

[swanny338]

Oh wow, it has been so long since I have posted here, I totally forgot about the upload thing. I will get on it ASAP, which may have to be in a bit. I know a pilot that wants to take me up and shoot some aerials.


And flyboy, I used to hang around the screenshot and hardware forums a lot. Ever since I switched to Mac in 2005 I have not even touched Flight Sim. Lately I have been considering picking up a PC just for flight sim... Every time I think about planes I realize that I miss FS just a bit.

Also might consider a Mac Pro and put windows on a separate partition. Just need to make sure everything is compatible as far as yokes and stuff. I assume it would be.

[Roughrider]

Excellent shots, hard to take with the motion and amout of light available. I feel sorry for those people, It always seems like there are wildfires in L.A. Mark

[expat]

Not just a cracking set of pictures, but a very real story in the whole set too  [smiley=clapping.gif]

Matt

[gtirob01]

Wow, nice photos! They bring back a lot of memories for me. I've lived through some pretty nasty firestorms in the San Diego area. My place was fine during them all, but just seeing those flames completely surrounding my neighborhood/city was one of the scariest things I've experienced. I remember standing on the roof of my house, hosing it down... all while my parents were out of town. I also know several people who lost homes in those fires... and it was just a horrible thought. So, I just hope they can get this fire out asap.

[a1]

Wow


i remember this fire. It was horrible. The sky around my area was filled up with haze all day.

[Fozzer]

I've been observing the various California Wild Fires for a few years now, courtesy of my daily San Francisco and Los Angeles, E-Mail News stories....

..and what amazes me, folks still continue to live in houses surrounded by flammable Grass/Forests/Trees!... ...!

(Take the recent Lake Tahoe Wildfire for Example).

F.... 8-)...!

...I would have expected the usual Cal Wildfire Season to be over by now!...(Winter approaching).

[Rich H]

Brilliant.

[Willit Run]

I pray for them all everytime I hear of a fire in CA.  My Sister lives in Temecula and I have a good friend that lives in Diamond Bar that I always worry about when there are wild fires!!.

 Great shots, Swanny!!