Timber Fire Grows Near Big Sur Landmarks

The Timber Fire in Big Sur surged to nearly 4,000 acres Wednesday, putting homes, tourist attractions and a major stretch of Highway 1 under pressure as about 1,000 firefighters worked to hold the line. The fast-moving blaze had burned 3,774.6 acres and was just 5% contained by Wednesday afternoon, with the greatest concern focused on the southern and western edges near scattered homes around Partington Ridge Road.

Cal Fire spokesperson Adrienne Freeman said about 350 structures were threatened as crews tried to stop the flames from rolling downhill through the steep coastal terrain. Firefighters were building a continuous containment line behind groups of homes instead of trying to defend each property one by one. Freeman described the area as extremely difficult to work in because of steep slopes and vegetation-choked canyons. In some spots, she said, homes can only be reached by narrow one-lane roads, overgrown driveways and old trails cut into the hillsides.

The Timber Fire gained another challenge Wednesday when cloud-to-ground lightning forced crews to pull back from containment lines and move to designated safe zones. Freeman told SFGATE that atmospheric instability can send fire in different directions, adding risk for crews already fighting limited visibility from smoke and fog. Firefighters later returned to the blaze, but officials said the rain that came with the storms would not be enough to stop a fire that has been burning through heavy vegetation since Sunday.

Freeman said the fire has been most active above the coastal fog layer, where conditions are much drier. Overnight, flames climbed steep hillsides, burned individual trees and slowly moved downhill. The mix of rugged land, shifting weather and heavy fuel has made the Timber Fire especially hard to contain, even with a large firefighting force on the ground.