Gifford Fire Town Hall in Sisquoc Thursday night for Updates and Questions
Jarrod Zinn
SISQUOC, Calif. – The Gifford Fire has become the largest fire and most challenging firefight in California so far in 2025.
The firefighting operation’s leaders held a town hall meeting Thursday evening at station 23 in Sisquoc.
“The story of this fire actually started months ago,” said fire behavior analyst Garrett Hazelton, at the town hall. “If you guys remember the winter rains. So what that did is it gave those plants a lot of water right at the peak of their growing seasons.”
Santa Barbara County Fire Department’s Station 23 is in Sisquoc, a small community southeast of Santa Maria and Orcutt.
Commanding officers held a town hall Thursday evening and provided updates to the Tepusquet and Sisquoc communities.
“On Monday I was out in Pine Canyon myself when the fire came over the hill there, and it was a dozer and hand crews out there that were putting down a line that actually pushed back the fire, that ultimately protected the community out here in Tepusquet,” says Santa Barbara County Supervisor Bob Nelson. “So I got to see it firsthand. Very proud of those guys.”
Officials say these town halls are important for anyone to find out if they’re in an area with an evacuation warning or order, and how to take steps to prepare yourself should an order be issued.
There was also a question and answer session at the end.
“This piece right here where it jumped out and caused all the smoke and all the evacuations, that has not burned in recorded history,” continued Hazelton during his town hall presentation. “The next closest fire is from 1912, and it was unnamed. And the next one that we see on the records is from 1950. So we have a lot of fuel loading out there.”
Officials say the most challenging part about fighting this fire is having to hike on foot to the fire line, plus the inability to use mechanized equipment in the thick of the wilderness.
“Here in this part of California, we have a lot of thick chaparral, which is really tough to get through, especially with chainsaws. It dulls that blade so quickly,” says Olivia Duba, a Los Padres National Forest wilderness technician. “Right now, the fire is burning into the San Rafael wilderness. So we’ve got hand crews and hotshots just getting after it as hard as they can with just their hand tools.”
The Gifford Fire is most actively spreading northwest of the La Panza Range in San Luis Obispo county and into the Machesna Wilderness.
But Sisquoc is one of the communities closest to the southern flank.
For further information about the fire, including evacuation warnings and orders, visit ReadySBC.org and view the Gifford Fire Evacuation Map.
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