Growing Timber Fire near Big Sur burns more than 2,000 acres

As of Tuesday morning, Cal Fire said the northern and eastern portions of the Timber Fire burning near Big Sur remain active, burning primarily above the marine layer. The blaze grew overnight and so far has burned 2,478 acres. It is 5% contained.

Currently, the response consists of 480 personnel, eight helicopters, 36 engines, five bulldozers, seven water tenders and 13 crews according to Cal Fire.

Josh Silveira, battalion chief for Cal Fire Monterey County, said that these are from multiple agencies across local, state and federal agencies, including crews from Contra Costa and Alameda County, Cal Fire, California Office of Emergency Services, Big Sur Fire Brigade and the U.S. Forest Service.

“That number’s expected to grow over the next couple days as we start to get our resources starting to make their way to the incident from around the state,” Silveira said.

Silveira said that the fire is currently moving to the northeast, up the mountains into the Ventana Wilderness where there are few structures.

“We do have crews in place in Big Sur and Ventana doing structure defense, making sure that if the fire backs down the hill those residents are secure,” Silveira said.

Currently there are 254 structures in the evacuation zone.

Silveira said as the fire moves to the northeast, the terrain becomes more difficult to navigate.

Moving east to west across the range, Silveira said the terrain is mostly too steep for access roads, meaning firefighters must travel on foot, cutting defensive lines by hand.

“On the ground, old school with shovels and picks,” Silveira said.

While the fire is moving away from the highway, Silveira said that if left unchecked, it will eventually encroach on other communities in the area.

“The chess game is, where do we engage the fire … to corral this thing out ahead of it to prevent it from impacting other communities,” Silveira said.

Another factor in that “chess game” is the weather.

As of Tuesday morning, there was a 15% chance of rain in the coming days. Silveira said that while this may slow the fire, he’s not expecting it to make much of a difference due to the area’s dry fuel.

“Even though we may get wetting rain…it’s not really going to dramatically affect the fuel moisture. It’ll dry out pretty quickly.”

This is a developing story, check back for more updates.