NYT does Santa Barbara

The ironies of publishing life. This Sunday's NYT travel section devotes its weekly "36 Hours in ...." profile to Santa Barbara, which in the midst of dealing with last night's firestorm. Actually, the piece makes little distinction between Santa Barabara and Montecito, which is taking the brunt of flames. Here's the opening:

Santa Barbara may be tiny — its 90,000 residents could be seated in the Los Angeles Coliseum — but it packs Oprah-like cachet. Indeed, the queen of daytime TV and other A-listers have made this former outpost of Spain’s American dominions their second home. Posh hotels, seven-figure mansions and trendy boutiques have opened along the so-called American Riviera, catering to members of the Hollywood set who drive up every weekend to frolic among the languorous palms and suntanned celebrities. But don’t let the crush of Ferraris and Prada fool you. With its perpetually blue skies and taco stands, Santa Barbara remains a laid-back town where the star attraction is still the beach.

Here's a snippet from the LAT story (time-posted at 9:42 so I'm not sure how up-to-date this information is).

Many of the homes destroyed by the fire were along Sycamore Canyon Road, Stanwood Drive and Coyote Road in the area straddling California 192, said Geri Ventura, a Montecito Fire District spokeswoman. "We lost homes mostly because this was a wind-driven fire," said Curtis Vincent, a Montecito Fire spokesman. "Showers of embers were raining down on properties." Capt. Eli Iskow of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department said firefighters would work today to keep the fire contained north of the 101 Freeway, west of San Ysidro Road, south of East Camino Cielo and east of Alamar Road.