Santa Barbara Tea Fire

Santa Barbara Tea Fire - Photos and video from the Tea Fire which has burned 2,500 acres outside Santa Barbara and is still burning out of control.

The Santa Barbara Tea Fire map below shows which areas have burned and which are threatened, with the Sycamore Canyon area devastated by the wildfire.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued a state of emergency with over 100 homes destroyed and thousands more threatened by the rapidly expanding Tea Fire.

The Santa Barbara fire is in the basic shape of a triangle, with Westmont College being the western point, St. Mary’s the eastern point, and the upper Riviera is the southern point.

Residents of more than 4,500 homes were ordered to evacuate as flames from the Tea Fire engulfed multimillion-dollar mansions and modest ranch-style homes north of Los Angeles after the blaze began Thursday evening.

The Tea Fire, so named because the blaze broke out near the Tea Gardens, a historic property in Santa Barbara dating to the early 1900s, was reported at about 5:45p.m.

Now, residents in the area north of Salinas Street all the way to Highway 101 have been told to evacuate and the fire chief said that people living in any mountainous area near the fire should definitely be prepared to leave.

Winds are calmer this morning after wind gusts of up to 70 mph continually fanned the flames overnight.

“You can just hear the explosions … of vehicles, homes,” Michaelo Rosso told KCAL as he prepared to leave his home. “It sounds like the Fourth of July out here.”