Section of Highway 1 closed as Timber Fire in Big Sur spreads

LATEST Aug. 11, 2:55 p.m. As firefighting personnel continue to battle the Timber Fire in Big Sur, Highway 1 has partially closed Tuesday afternoon. CHP Monterey sent an alert that the road was closed to the public from the Fernwood Resort to mile post marker 37 at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park Vista Point because of the spread of the fire and ongoing evacuations.

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The fire has continued to spread on Tuesday, reaching at least 2,478 acres. Containment remains at 5%.

Aug. 11,1 p.m.The Timber Fire continues to spread near Big Sur and has now scorched 2,989 acres, according to Cal Fire. The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office issued a new evacuation order for the area further north along Highway 1, including part of Big Sur Village. Residents are advised that there is an “immediate threat to life” due to the fire.

All areas under evacuation orders and warnings can be seen on the Genasys map.

Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service, said the fire had burned “fairly actively” overnight, but normal summer weather with fog along the coast was helping firefighting personnel on Tuesday.

“It’s foggy on the lower elevations,” she told SFGATE. “We’re socked in, and of course, that’s mitigating fire behavior lower down.”

At higher elevations, above the marine layer, officials are seeing more fire activity with breezy and warm weather, Freeman said. 

No structural damage or injuries have been reported. The fire remains 5% contained.

Aug. 11, 10:42 a.m. A wildfire that erupted along some of California’s most iconic coastline has spread overnight, reaching 2,000 acres as of 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning. 

The Timber wildfire ignited on Sunday morning, according to Cal Fire, and spread quickly throughout the day on Monday, leading to evacuation orders that affected several iconic businesses, including the luxury Alila Ventana Big Sur resort, the Esalen Institute and the Nepenthe restaurant. 

Currently, at least 500 firefighting personnel are responding to the fire, which is 5% contained. At least 259 structures are threatened by the blaze, but no damage has been reported. 

Cal Fire officials confirmed that, starting on Tuesday morning, additional crews will be arriving. “Yeah, we have firefighters from around the state ready and personnel en route,” Josh Silveira, a battalion chief and public information officer for Cal Fire, told SFGATE on Tuesday.

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While Highway 1 was briefly closed on Monday except for evacuating residents, it has reopened, although the California Highway Patrol is asking motorists to avoid the area. 

Los Padres National Forest is administering the response to the fire and, in an update on Monday evening, said the fire had not reached the treetops.

“The fire is moving at a slow rate of spread, burning primarily along the ground through grass, brush, and oak woodland,” read the post on Facebook.

The fire was first reported just before 11 a.m. on Sunday in the area southeast of Loma Vista in Monterey County. Big Sur Fire Chief Matt Harris said in a Facebook post that his team was one of the first to respond to the fire on Sunday along with Cal Fire and reported that firefighting personnel were operating in “extremely challenging terrain” on steep slopes near the coast.

Cal Fire spokesperson Silveira said the cause of the fire is “currently under investigation.”

Harris said the firefighting response was hampered, as federal and state firefighting assets have been used to respond to massive wildfires in the Pacific Northwest that have burned hundreds of thousands of acres.

“Crews worked all through the night to try and contain the fire but due to roll out and limited resources, it became obvious that the Timber Fire would become an extended incident,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

The U.S. has been dealing with a particularly difficult wildfire season, with 104 large fires currently burning in 15 states. So far this year, over 6.4 million acres in the U.S. have burned, a 10-year high, according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center.

This breaking news story has been updated.