Almost 20 days after the Timber fire broke out in Big Sur, threatening hundreds of residents and structures as well as beloved local businesses, the fire is continuing to grow at a rapid pace, officials said.
On Thursday, the Timber fire grew about 4,000 acres over the course of the day, said Cal Fire Battalion Chief Josh Silveira. It surged from roughly 19,000 acres in the morning to more than 23,000 acres as of around 7:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, another fast-moving wildfire has broken out nearby in Monterey County, the uncontained Plaskett fire, which ignited Tuesday in a remote area about 30 miles down the coast from the Timber fire and has grown to about 140 acres.
“It’s a blessing and a curse to have another incident that close,” Silveira said. “The blessing is that we were able to flex resources down into the area and try for a very aggressive initial attack.” But he said “the curse” is that it takes time to bring in additional resources to fight the Timber fire.
The Timber fire is 21% contained, Cal Fire said in an update Thursday. That’s a decrease from Sunday, when the fire was 25% contained.
The Timber fire grew in size at a quicker rate than crews could build new control lines, Silveira said. Firefighters are battling the fire in steep, rugged terrain, which he said had prevented crews from finding “advantageous points” to fight the fire.
Strong, erratic winds have made the going tough for fire crews, and red flag fire conditions are expected Friday.
There have been no civilian or firefighter injuries so far, Silveira said, and no structures have been damaged or destroyed, though there he said there had been some close calls at homes in the fire’s path.
“We’ve had the fire interact with the clearing around some of those houses in some instances,” Silveira said, but homeowners in the area have been proactive with clearing vegetation around their homes, which he said had helped.
Silveira said about 600 residents had received evacuation orders as a result of the Timber and Plaskett fires.
Big Sur’s micro-climate makes firefighting more complicated: The relative humidity drops at night, making fires grow rapidly.
Lee Beyer, a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service, said fires lasting from three to eight weeks are “pretty typical” for the region due to the terrain and remoteness of the forest.
“Sometimes they’ll go all the way up until we get a season-ending rain or snow event,” he said. “When the fuels and the weather aren’t helping you, that certainly leaves it as a possibility that this could continue for at least a few more weeks.”
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