Thomas Fire threatening celebrity enclaves in Santa Barbara County

The grueling battle to halt the fire threatening Santa Barbara and celebrity-filled communities along the coast of California is being waged over a vast rolling backcountry stretching inland over steep mountains, through wooded gullies and along inaccessible chaparral-covered cliffs.

Nearly 7,000 firefighters, tanker planes and helicopters pounded the Thomas Fire on Monday after stubborn Santa Ana winds died down, slowing the relentless march of flames through Southern California.

The fire, which was 20 percent contained Monday morning, grew to 231,700 acres and late in the day was burning around Carpinteria and headed toward multimillion-dollar celebrity homes in Montecito. It is the largest and most destructive of six wind-driven fires burning between Santa Barbara and San Diego.

TOPSHOT - Firefighters move away from a burning house after discovering downed live power lines, as the Thomas wildfire continues to burn in Carpinteria, California, on December 10, 2017. The Thomas fire is only 15 percent contained, now threatening the city of Santa Barbara and the nearby coastal town of Carpinteria, making it one of the worst wildfires in California history. / AFP PHOTO / MARK RALSTONMARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images less TOPSHOT - Firefighters move away from a burning house after discovering downed live power lines, as the Thomas wildfire continues to burn in Carpinteria, California, on December 10, 2017. The Thomas fire is ... more Photo: MARK RALSTON, AFP/Getty Images Photo: MARK RALSTON, AFP/Getty Images Image 1 of / 115 Caption Close Thomas Fire threatening celebrity enclaves in Santa Barbara County 1 / 115 Back to Gallery

“We’re sending ground resources everywhere where we can send them in, but if those areas don’t have roads we can’t send people in there,” said Capt. Issac Sanchez of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. “We’ve got the best firefighters in the country engaged on this fire right now. Our goal is certainly to keep it away from all of these communities, but it’s an incredibly dynamic fire and we have to deal with a lot of variables.”

The Thomas Fire, which started in Ventura County on Dec. 4, is now the fifth-largest wildfire in modern state history. It has forced evacuations of 94,607 people as it has crackled through neighborhoods, woodlands and grasslands, jumping roads and destroying 867 structures.

More than 18,000 homes are being threatened over an area measuring nearly 360 square miles, and flames are licking up against the Los Padres National Forest on three sides. Cal Fire said the estimated damage was just over $48 million so far.

“This thing’s a monster,” Jason Hodge, a firefighter with the Ventura County Fire Department, said Monday. “Right now the thing that’s really unique about this fire is just the sheer width of it. Just to drive from one end of the fire (in Fillmore in Ventura County) to the other (in Santa Barbara County) with no traffic takes 45 minutes.”

Nearly 2,000 more firefighters from all over California and the western United States, including fire departments in San Francisco, Oakland, Alameda County, Hayward and Fremont, were brought in Sunday to fight the fire, bringing the total to 6,397 — one of the largest deployments in California history. One firefighter from Redding broke his leg fighting the fire over the weekend, Cal Fire officials said.

Planes, helicopters and fire crews attacked the northwestern edge of the fire Monday in an attempt to prevent flames from rolling further into Carpinteria and Summerland.

Hodge said six structures in Carpinteria, just 11 miles southeast of Santa Barbara, have been destroyed.

Montecito and Carpinteria are home to such celebrities as talk-show hosts Ellen Degeneres and Oprah Winfrey and actors Rob Lowe and Jeff Bridges.

Degeneres tweeted Sunday that she evacuated her pets from the $7.2 million Montecito home she purchased last December.

“Everyone in the Montecito area is checking up on each other and helping to get people and animals to safety,” Degeneres tweeted. “I’m proud to be a part of this community. I’m sending lots of love and gratitude to the fire department and sheriffs.”

“Peace be Still, is my prayer tonight,” tweeted Winfrey. “For all the fires raging thru my community and beyond.”

Janet Upton, a deputy director of Cal Fire, said celebrities living in the area have been extremely helpful transmitting fire information to their neighbors.

“They just help us try to keep people calm and give validated information, amplifying what public safety officials are saying,” Upton said. “We appreciate the assist there.”

Upton said Lowe and other stars living in the area were also helpful during previous fires, including the Jesusita Fire, which burned 8,733 acres in the Santa Barbara hills in 2009, and the Zaca Fire, which scorched 240,207 acres in the San Rafael Mountains northeast of the Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County in 2007.

Mandatory evacuations were in place Monday for some Santa Barbara neighborhoods and the community of Montecito, north of Highway 192, and eastern parts of Carpinteria, according to officials in Santa Barbara County. An evacuation shelter was set up at UC Santa Barbara’s Recreation Center.

If there was one bright spot Monday, it was how few casualties there have been during the disaster. Only one person has died, a 70-year-old Santa Paula woman killed in a car crash as she attempted to evacuate.

“For all the challenges that this fire has presented,” Hodge said, “the fact that we’ve had so few injuries and really haven’t seen the lives lost that this fire has the potential for has kept people in pretty good spirits overall.”

A red flag warning was in place for Santa Barbara County through Monday evening, but although the Santa Ana winds had died down, they were expected to continue throughout the week, forecasters said.

Gusts on Monday were forecast to reach up to 30 mph at higher elevations, with gusts up to 20 mph in the valleys, said Matt Mehle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

“The air mass is still extremely dry,” Mehle said. “That’s why there is still concern out there. Warm and dry conditions will continue through Thursday.”

Tom Rolinski, a senior meteorologist for the U.S. Forest Service, said it is not at all unusual to have offshore winds in December and January, but rarely has he seen it this dry this late in the year.

“What is unusual is that we haven't had any significant or meaningful precipitation since last March,” Rolinski said. “We’ve had this in October, but I can’t recall — and I’ve been here 22 years — when we’ve had everything come together for a fire siege in December.”

There is a slight possibility of rain around Dec. 20, Mehle added.

As the Thomas Fire raged on, firefighters made headway in the battle against four other blazes that sprouted throughout the region last week.

In San Diego County, the Lilac Fire — which has burned 4,100 acres, leveled at least 151 structures and damaged 56 others — was 80 percent contained Monday. Full containment on the blaze was expected by Dec. 21, Cal Fire reported.

The 15,619-acre Creek Fire, which ignited in the Sylmar area of Los Angeles County, was at 95 percent containment. At least 60 residential buildings and 63 outbuildings were destroyed in the fire, and 81 other structures were damaged.

The 6,049-acre Rye Fire in Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County) that started Tuesday was 93 percent contained. Six structures were destroyed and three were damaged.

The 422-acre Skirball Fire, which broke out Wednesday in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, was 85 percent contained. Twelve structures were damaged and six destroyed.

Meanwhile, evacuations were lifted for most of Ventura and Santa Paula, where the Thomas Fire started near Thomas Aquinas College around 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 4.

Most school districts throughout Santa Barbara County remained closed Monday, with some, including Santa Barbara Unified, Carpinteria Unified and Montecito Unified, expected to remain closed until after the holiday break.

Last week President Trump declared a federal state of emergency for the second time since wildfires ravaged Northern California in October and killed 44 people, ordering federal assistance to supplement state and local emergency response.

In a visit Saturday to the fire-torn areas, Gov. Jerry Brown called on the federal government to invest more in infrastructure and firefighting capacity.

Peter Fimrite and Sarah Ravani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite, @SarRavani