++MUST COURTESY JOSEPH SOUZA++
AP TELEVISION - NO ACCESS NAMERICA/INTERNET
++NIGHT SHOTS++
Santa Barbara, 14 November 2008
1. Various of flames, burning houses and helicopter
AP TELEVISION
Santa Barbara, 14 November 2008
2. SOUNDBITE: (English) Larry Williamson, property damaged by fire:
"And I opened the front door and it was just like a waterfall of fire and sparks coming down. I've never seen anything like it."
3. Various of burnt out car
4. Damaged property
5. Close of flame
6. Various of debris from fire
7. Burnt out car, tilt up to home
8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Kevin Wallace, Montecito Fire District:
"The sundowner winds blew embers all over and it's just something that mother nature is in control and we aren't."
9. Westmont College entrance
10. Burnt out car
11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Jordan Evans, Westmont College Student:
"It was shocking to see the flames right outside the gym, where all of us were huddled in there, it was surprising to see how fire could get that close to us."
12. Wide shot of fire fighters
13. Flames on hillside
14. SOUNDBITE: (English) Chief John Scherrei, Santa Barbara Fire Department:
"I'm surprised we haven't lost 500 homes at this moment, the wind was so strong last night it knocked your door and pinned your door against the car."
15. Fire fighters on hillside
16. Smoke rising
17. Helicopter dropping water on hillside
US fire officials on Friday said 111 homes had been confirmed destroyed in a celebrity-studded enclave of northern California and that the burned area had expanded to 18-hundred acres (728 hectares).
A Montecito fire spokeswoman said another 15-hundred homes in Montecito were threatened, but that wind conditions in the evening had been relatively mild.
Fierce winds were blamed for fanning the flames that quickly spread across Montecito on Thursday night and into Friday.
The fire began early in the evening on Thursday before it chewed through multi-million US dollars homes whose shattered windows glowed like jack-o-lanterns as they blazed through the night.
Thirteen people were injured in the blaze, which more than one thousand firefighters tried to contain.
A state of emergency was declared in Santa Barbara County and about 54-hundred homes were evacuated in Montecito, a town of 14-thousand where Los Angeles-weary celebrities rub shoulders with friendly locals.
Fuelled by vast stands of oil-rich eucalyptus trees - which exploded when lit - and decades of chaparral and other growth, the fire quickly spread to about 15-hundred acres (607 hectares) - more than two square miles (five square kilometres) - by Friday.
Santa Barbara's county deputy fire chief asked for patience from residents as crews tried to catalogue the devastation in remote hilly areas accessible only by winding roads.
Blistering winds gusting to 70 miles per hour (115 kph), dry brush and oil-rich eucalyptus trees helped turn an ordinary brush fire into an exploding inferno that quickly consumed rows of luxury homes and part of a college, where students spent the night in a gymnasium shelter.
Some one-thousand students were evacuated at Westmont College, a Christian liberal arts school, as another 300 spent the night on cots in the gym.
