Gifford Fire fight shifts to ‘recovery’ as containment hits more than 90%
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- Gifford Fire containment reached 91% as burned acreage held at 131,589 acres.
- Firefighting crews shifted focus to restoration as suppression efforts decline.
- High temperatures and low humidity may elevate fire risk later this week.
Containment of the Gifford Fire continued to increase overnight as the acreage of the fire remained the same, swinging the pendulum toward recovery.
Staying at 131,589 acres, the Gifford Fire was 91% contained on Monday morning, according to an incident update by the Los Padres National Forest.
Many firefighting resources have been released in recent days as remaining crews focus more on restoration and repair work of impacted areas, according to the Forest Service.
“As suppression work winds down, the incident is transitioning toward recovery,” the Forest Service said.
The improvement can be attributed to increased humidity that helped moderate fire activity for four nights in a row during mop-up operations, according to the incident update.
Strong winds challenged containment lines, causing visible smoldering deep within the fire perimeter, but no spotting occurred outside fire lines, the update said. Crews continue to tackle smoldering hotspots along unsecured lines on the northwestern side of the fire and isolate heat sources inside the fire boundaries south of Highway 166.
Higher temperatures and dropping humidity this week are expected to create elevated fire conditions from Thursday through Friday, the update said. Gusty winds are not expected.
Consistent with Sunday’s update, five structures have been destroyed, 778 others were still threatened and a total of 63 residents remained evacuated, according to the incident update.
Reported injuries remained at three civilians and nine firefighters, according to Cal Fire.
Over the past days, many evacuation zones were downgraded from orders or warnings.
On Monday morning, Santa Barbara County Zones LPF-165-B was lowered to an evacuation warning while Santa Barbara County Zones SBC-161-A, SBC-161-B, SBC-163-A, SBC-163-B, SBC-179, SBC-229-A, SBC-167-A and SBC-167-B were removed from the evacuation warning list, according to the emergency response app Watch Duty.
By Monday afternoon, several zones in SLO County were downgraded in evacuation status, according to the app. Evacuation orders were reduced to warnings in Zones LPF-015, LPF-016, LPF-018 (Eastern portion) and LPF-014 (Southern portion).
Evacuation warnings were lifted for Zones LPF-011 (Northern portion), LPF-014 (Northern portion), LPF-017, LPF-018 (Western portion), LPF-019, SLC-239 (Both portions), SLC-263, SLC-264, SLC-297 (Both portions), SLC-298, SLC-336 and SLC-337.
A full list of evacuation zones can be found at prepareslo.org.
This story was originally published August 18, 2025 at 10:54 AM.
