Fire Watch

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) ― Officials say the fast-growing Montecito fire, dubbed the Tea fire, has injured 13 and destroyed at least 100 homes. A 98-year-old man who was evacuated from his home has died, according to officials. It is not immediately known if his death can be attributed on the fire.

The blaze has also destroyed many college buildings and forced residents of 5,446 homes to flee the longtime celebrity hideaway of Montecito.

Oprah Winfrey is just one of the celebrities who have a home (hers a 42-acre estate) in the ritzy enclave.

Those who remained in their homes were being urged to conserve water, as reservoirs have dropped to "dangerously low levels" because firefighters are tapping hydrants.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for Santa Barbara County, which dictates state personnel and equipment to the firefighting effort. It also says the Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to give California a grant to help fight the fire.

The fire broke out just before 6 p.m. Thursday and spread to about 2,500 acres -- nearly 4 square miles -- by early Friday, destroying dozens of luxury homes and parts of the Westmont College campus in the foothills of Montecito, just southeast of Santa Barbara. 

Flames chewed through a eucalyptus grove on the 135-acre campus and destroyed several buildings housing the physics and psychology departments, a dormitory and at least one faculty home, college spokesman Scott Craig said.

"I saw flames about 100 feet high in the air shooting up with the wind just howling," he told AP Radio. "Now when the wind howls and you've got palm trees and eucalyptus trees that are literally exploding with their hot oil, you've got these big, red hot embers that are flying through the sky and are catching anything on fire."

Hundreds of students fled to gym, where they spent the night sleeping on the floor.

Some stood in groups praying, others sobbed openly and comforted each other.

Beth Lazor, 18, said she was in her dorm when the alarm went off.

She said she only had time to grab her laptop, phone, a teddy bear and a debit card before fleeing the burning building.

Her roommate, Catherine Wilson, said she didn't have time to get anything.

"I came out and the whole hill was glowing," Wilson said. "There were embers falling down."

About 5,400 homes in the tony community of 14,000 residents were evacuated and more could be forced to flee if the fire spreads, said Terri Nisich, a spokeswoman with the Santa Barbara County Executive Office.

Thousands of feet above the flames, Sky 9 shot footage that showed what initially looked like a massive campfire with dozens of glowing embers.

When the camera zoomed in, however, what appeared to be flaring coals turned out to be houses -- many of them sprawling estates -- gutted by flame. Palm trees were lit like burning matches.

"It looked like lava coming down a volcano," Leslie Hollis Lopez said as she gathered belongings from her house.

Firefighters were trying to stop the flames from marching farther west to dense neighborhoods in Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara City Fire spokesman John Ahlman told reporters he spotted about 20 homes burning Thursday night in the city.

About 200 people spent the night at an evacuation center at a high school in nearby Goleta, but rest was out of the question for Ed Naha.

He was worried about his home in the hills above Santa Barbara.

"I don't think we are going to have the house when we go back," Naha said.

The 58-year-old writer had been home working on his computer when smoke blanketed his house.

He gathered his insurance documents, his wife and two dogs and left as flames approached his neighborhood.

"We are used to seeing smoke because we do have fires up here, but I've never seen that reddish, hellish glow that close," he said. "I was waiting for Dante and Virgil to show up."

The injured included a firefighter who was taken to the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks with burns to his hands and face, two others who were taken to UCI Medical Center, two firefighters who suffered smoke inhalation and two residents taken to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital with substantial burns.

The fire was fanned by evening winds known locally as "sundowners," which gusted up to 70 mph from land to sea late Thursday.

Around sunset, winds shift from the normal onshore flow of cool, moist sea breezes and push downhill from the Santa Ynez Mountains.

The winds weakened overnight, with gusts reaching from 17 to 25 mph, said Jamie Meier, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. "We're expecting conditions to improve for firefighters on the lines, but it will still be warm and dry through tomorrow," she said.

The fire temporarily knocked out power to more than 20,000 homes in Santa Barbara, but it was restored to most homes and businesses by early Friday morning, Southern California Edison spokesman Paul Klein said.

Montecito, a quiet community known for its Mediterranean-like climate and charming Spanish colonial homes tucked behind lush front yards, has long attracted celebrities such as Michael Douglas and Rob Lowe.

The landmark Montecito Inn was built in the 1920s by Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle, and the nearby San Ysidro Ranch was the honeymoon site of John F. Kennedy in 1953.

Publicists for Lowe and Winfrey said the celebrities' homes had not been destroyed and neither was staying in the area Thursday night.

Montecito suffered a major fire in 1977, when more than 200 homes burned.

A fire in 1964 burned about 67,000 acres and damaged 150 houses and buildings.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)