A fast-growing wildfire tearing through Big Sur exploded to nearly 4,000 acres Wednesday as roughly 1,000 firefighters battled flames threatening homes and tourist sites.
The Timber Fire had burned 3,774.6 acres and was just 5% contained by Wednesday afternoon, with the greatest concern along its southern and western edges near scattered homes around Partington Ridge Road.
About 350 structures were threatened, Cal Fire spokesperson Adrienne Freeman said.
Firefighters were trying to build a continuous containment line behind groups of homes rather than defend individual properties as the blaze pushed downhill through Big Sur’s notoriously rugged terrain.
“It’s very, very steep, so that’s very difficult,” Freeman said. “These canyons are very choked with vegetation.”
The terrain has also made access a nightmare. Some properties can only be reached by narrow one-lane roads, overgrown driveways and old trails winding through steep hillsides.
The firefight was further complicated Wednesday when cloud-to-ground lightning forced crews to temporarily disengage from containment lines and retreat to designated safe zones.
“Any kind of instability in the atmosphere like that can cause fire to go in all directions,” Freeman told SFGATE.
Firefighters later reengaged the blaze, but officials warned that the rain accompanying the storms would not be enough to knock down a fire that has been chewing through heavy vegetation since Sunday.
“While it gives us a great opportunity to get good work done, especially in the lower elevations, it’s not going to put this fire out,” Freeman said.
The fire has been particularly active above the coastal fog layer, where conditions remain much drier. Overnight, flames climbed steep hillsides, torched individual trees and slowly crept downhill.
Highway 1 remains closed through the fire zone between Fernwood Resort and Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park Vista Point, with firefighters using the narrow corridor to move heavy equipment and battle the blaze.
“We have 1,000 firefighters here. We’re going to have more in the coming days,” Freeman said. “Visibility is extremely limited when you have smoke and you have fog.”
The closure is also threatening Big Sur’s peak tourist season. The owner of famed Nepenthe restaurant told Business Insider that every day the restaurant remains closed results in between $70,000 in lost sales.
Other Big Sur’s tourist destinations are under threat, including luxury resort the Ventana Inn and the Henry Miller Memorial Library.
The fire has not yet caused reported structural damage or injuries, and its cause remains under investigation.
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