Sherpa Fire

Rancho del Cielo is a ranch located atop the Santa Ynez Mountain range northwest of Santa Barbara, California. For more than 20 years, it was the vacation home of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The 688-acre (278 ha) ranch's Spanish name translates to Sky's Ranch or Heaven's Ranch in English. In 1974, Reagan's family purchased the ranch, and he himself frequented the ranch throughout his presidency. The ranch is currently owned and operated by the Young America's Foundation.

Santa Barbara County, officially the County of Santa Barbara (Spanish: Condado de Santa Bárbara), is located in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria. Santa Barbara County comprises the Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Most of the county is part of the California Central Coast. Mainstays of the county's economy include engineering, resource extraction (particularly petroleum extraction and diatomaceous earth mining), winemaking, agriculture, and education. The software development and tourism industries are important employers in the southern part of the county. Southern Santa Barbara County is sometimes considered the cultural boundary of Southern California/Northern California.

Rancho Lomas de la Purificacion was a 13,341-acre (53.99 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Barbara County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Agustín Janssens. The name refers to the hills of Mission La Purísima Concepción. The grant extended between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the south bank of the Santa Ynez River opposite Rancho Cañada de los Pinos, and south east of Mission Santa Inés and present day Santa Ynez, in the Santa Ynez Valley.

The Santa Ynez Valley (Spanish: Valle de Santa Ynez) is located in Santa Barbara County, California, between the Santa Ynez Mountains to the south and the San Rafael Mountains to the north. The Santa Ynez River flows through the valley from east to west. The Santa Ynez Valley is separated from the Los Alamos Valley, to the northwest, by the Purisima Hills, and from the Santa Maria Valley by the Solomon Hills. The Santa Rita Hills separate the Santa Ynez Valley from the Santa Rita and Lompoc Valleys to the west.The valley has a population of about 20,000 residents living in the communities of Solvang, Los Olivos, Santa Ynez, Buellton, and Ballard.

The Santa Ynez Valley AVA is an American Viticultural Area located in Santa Barbara County, California and was established on May 16, 1983 by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). It is part of the larger Central Coast AVA, and contains the greatest concentration of wineries in Santa Barbara County. The valley is formed by the Purisima Hills and San Rafael Mountains to the north and the Santa Ynez Mountains to the south creating a long, east-west corridor with very cool temperatures on the coast that become progressively warmer inland. The Santa Ynez River flows east to west on the valley floor toward the Pacific Ocean. As of 2021, the Santa Ynez Valley contains four other established viticultural areas: Sta. Rita Hills on its western boundary; Ballard Canyon and Los Olivos District occupying the center region; and Happy Canyon on the eastern border. Chardonnay is the most planted grape variety in the cooler, western portion of the valley while Rhône varieties thrive in the eastern locales.

Santa Ynez Airport (Kunkle Field) (IATA: SQA, ICAO: KIZA, FAA LID: IZA) is a public airport located one mile (2 km) southeast of the central business district of Santa Ynez, in the Santa Ynez Valley of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. The airport covers 125 acres (51 ha) and has one runway (08/26), measuring 2,804 x 75 ft. (854 x 23 m). The airport does not have a control tower but does offer some services, including 24-hour access to both 100LL and Jet A self-service fuel and tie-downs for transient aircraft. Santa Ynez Airport is classified as a regional general aviation airport, and averaged 83 aircraft operations per day in 2015: 55% transient general aviation, 43% local general aviation, 1% air taxi, and <1% military. There are 112 aircraft based at the airport, including 15 gliders and 6 ultra-lights; the remaining aircraft are helicopters (5), single-engine airplanes (78), and the remaining 8 aircraft are multi-engine. There are no jets based at the airport.

The Chumash Casino Resort is owned and operated by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians. Chumash is located near Santa Ynez Airport, in the Santa Ynez Indian Reservation, about 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Solvang, California.

Santa Ynez (; Spanish for "St. Agnes") is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Santa Ynez Valley of Santa Barbara County, California. The town of Santa Ynez is one of the communities of the Santa Ynez Valley. It features the Santa Ynez Airport for general aviation, with a paved 2,804 by 75 feet (855 m × 23 m) runway. The population was 4,505 at the 2020 census, up from 4,418 at the 2010 census. Santa Ynez is the archaic spelling of Santa Inés in the Spanish, meaning Saint Agnes.

Santa Ynez Valley Union High School (SYHS) is a public high school in Santa Ynez, California that serves students in grades 9–12 in the Santa Ynez Valley. As of the 2017–18 school year, 908 students were enrolled at the school.

Bradbury Dam is an earthen dam across the Santa Ynez River in central Santa Barbara County, California. The dam forms Lake Cachuma, which provides the majority of water supplies within the county. Although the Santa Ynez can reach massive flows in the winter, it usually dries up for several months of the year in the summer. A large storage facility to catch winter floodwaters for use in the summer and autumn was desperately needed by the growing population of the region, especially that of south coast cities like Santa Barbara and Carpinteria. Even before Bradbury Dam was considered, the Gibraltar Dam was built upstream to divert water through a tunnel to the city of Santa Barbara. However, that dam was plagued by siltation and was unable to fully serve the water requirements of the city.Construction on Bradbury Dam started in 1950 as part of a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation scheme called the Cachuma Project, intended to provide long-term water storage and delivery to Santa Barbara and other cities throughout the region as well as provide water for irrigation. Originally named the Cachuma Dam upon completion in 1953, the name was changed in 1971 to honor C. W. "Brad" Bradbury, a local water supply proponent.

Rancho Nojoqui was a 13,284-acre (53.76 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Barbara County, California given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Raimundo Carrillo. The grant was located in the Santa Ynez Valley and foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains, just south of present-day Solvang.

Cachuma Lake is a reservoir in the Santa Ynez Valley of central Santa Barbara County, California on the Santa Ynez River adjoining the north side of California State Route 154. The artificial lake was created by the construction of Bradbury Dam, a 201 ft (61 m) earth-fill structure built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 1953. Its surface area covers 3,100 acres (1,300 ha), with a maximum design capacity of 205,000 acre⋅ft (253,000,000 m3), but it is currently limited to 188,000 acre⋅ft (232,000,000 m3) due to sediment accumulation. The late-December 2022 and early-January 2023 storms dramatically raised the water level in the lake, from an average of 33% full to 100% full for the first time in 12 years.