Tiny town of Los Olivos copes with looming wildland fire in nearby hills

LOS OLIVOS, Calif. - The rural community of Los Olivos has been hoping for a pleasant summer season full of traditional events, neighborhood get-togethers, tourists supporting their businesses, and the regulars here for wine tasting. But the big 4th of July weekend event has been a wildland fire.

The Lake fire, up the road by the Zaca Lake resort, is several miles from Los Olivos, but the town is one of the closest areas where you can get a bite to eat or where firefighters can stop their rigs to regroup before they get to their base camps.

Campers and those hoping to go up Figueroa Mountain Road are turned around a couple of miles up, near the Sycamore Valley Ranch (formerly the Neverland Ranch.)

Smoke from the more than 20,000-acre fire is shrouding the skies and putting a gloomy lid on life in the Santa Ynez Valley while the temperature reads 100 degrees.

It is still yet to be seen if this fire will keep travelers away who had planned a trip into the area, or if they will realize the fire is up in the hills, not down in the main housing community or by businesses.

"The weekend was a little bit slower than it typically is," said Corey Edwards at the Los Olivos General Store. "Because A, the heat and B, the fire, so traffic was  little bit slower than would normally see in July." Customers were still browsing around inside at the candles, books, food items and wine,   but also  checking the sky outside.

The wind was light to moderate and for most of the day skies in Los Olivos were clear, because of just enough wind to keep the smoke going another direction.

Leanna Drammer owns Lou, a clothing boutique who said, "over the weekend I was outside doing a little pop up at Mattei's Tavern and my eyes were like bleeding, it was so smokey with the air quality." For today, "I say the air quality is much better."

Drammer was at the post office where many people were coming and going and talking about the fire.

Tyler Westover was pouring local wine at the Coquelicot Tasting Room. He said "a lot of people here are very  worried about the air quality too and a couple of tasting rooms in town have signs in their doors saying 'closed.' "

New fire maps are around town, dropped off by the fire public information team. at the entrance and show the latest size and areas of  the fire growth.

Edwards said, "it's really scary  especially  for you know not only all the residents in the Fig mountain area but especially the residents of Los Olivos because it seems so unpredictable  and so crazy that I think everybody's on high alert."

The smoke can look very ominous even though the flames are up in the hills.  Westover said he was "scared  that people are going to be deterred from  this and I hope that people continue to come up."