"parts of big sur are on fire, what does this mean for the monterey county and big surs beautiful coastline?"--Paloma bastos, 8th grade
There have recently been some sparks of chatter around Monterey County because of its two recent blazing fires, the Timber fire, and the Plaskett fire.
The Timber fire started August 8th in Los Padres National Forest near the Big Sur area in Monterey, which is just a few hours from Oakland. The cause of this fire is still under investigation although a local watchdog group called “Keep Big Sur Wild" blames social media. “This is the consequence of what happens when you exploit and expose a once pristine and uncrowded location on social media. Stop selling out Big Sur locations,” the group posted to their Facebook group.
The Plaskett fire started August 26th, a few weeks after the Timber fire. The Plaskett fire is a little farther away from Big Sur, but is still in the Monterey County area.
Evacuations have been ordered for the residents of Monterey County because of how large these fires have gotten, with the Plaskett fire almost reaching 30,000 acres and the Timber fire at around 25,000 acres. Those two fires combined are almost double the size of San Francisco.
The famous Highway 1 was closed for nearly three years and only recently fully reopened earlier this year. Because of these fires Highway 1 had to close temporarily once again for about 30 miles along the Big Sur coastline. It recently reopened once again, but with many warnings to watch out for emergency vehicles.
Wesleigh Stone, an 8th grader in Literary Arts says, “I feel very sad [about the fires], and I love Monterey, it’s so beautiful, and I can’t imagine anything bad happening to it.”
Stone loves the Monterey area, and so does Silvio Bastos, a 7th grader in Production Design. Bastos says, “Yes [it’s so sad] we were supposed to go to Big Sur, but then the fire started.” Bastos hopes the fires can stop soon so he can experience the Big Sur coastline, but these fires aren’t working out in his favor unfortunately.
These fires are still active according to Cal Fire, with the Plaskett fire slowing down a lot at 89% contained, and the Timber fire being hard to contain at only 39% as of September 14th. These fires have created heat waves in the area because of the large amount of smoke, which makes it harder for the many firefighters to contain it.
Some of Big Sur’s famous hiking trails, such as Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, and more, are closed because of these fires. Many businesses and resorts closed as well, but some of them did end up reopening and are welcoming residents and visitors, such as Nepenthe restaurant, The Phoenix Shoe, and Cafe Kevah.
Both fires are still under investigation and the US Forest Service is asking for anyone with information to step forward and contact them by email at [email protected].
