Big Sur's Timber Fire Grows to 1,700 Acres, Doubling Overnight as Nepenthe and Ventana Resort Sit Under Evacuation Orders

The Timber Fire in Big Sur has grown from 400 acres to more than 1,700 acres in about 24 hours, according to Cal Fire and the LA Times. It started Sunday morning in the Los Padres National Forest southeast of Loma Vista and kept expanding through Monday afternoon.

Evacuation orders now cover some of the most recognizable stops on California's coastline. Nepenthe restaurant, open since 1949 and famous for its clifftop views, is inside the order zone. So is the Henry Miller Memorial Library and the Alila Ventana Big Sur resort, a 51-year-old property. The Post Ranch Inn, built on land the Post family settled in the 1860s, sits nearby as well.

Pacific Coast Highway is closed to non-residents from Point Sur Lighthouse to Vista Point, the California Highway Patrol said. The Monterey County Sheriff's Office asked the public to stay away entirely Monday, saying roads need to stay clear for first responders.

Cal Fire Battalion Chief Josh Silveira described the terrain firefighters are working in as steep, rugged, and hot, with winds shifting direction regularly. Those shifting winds have made it hard for crews to get ahead of the fire, he said.

The fire's most active flank Monday was moving east and uphill, toward campgrounds and a scattered handful of homes, not west toward the restaurants and hotels along the highway, Silveira told the LA Times. Fire can still turn fast in the region's drainages, low-lying terrain that traps hot air and can send flames racing uphill.

Cal Fire took over command of the incident from the U.S. Forest Service at 4 p.m. Monday. About 300 firefighters were assigned as of Monday afternoon, and that number was expected to more than double this week.

Visitors staying in campgrounds and hotels in the area had to leave. Carmel Middle School opened as an evacuation shelter Monday evening, and regional hotels began offering discounted rates to displaced residents and tourists.

Washington and British Columbia: recovery, not growth

While Big Sur's fire was accelerating, the wildfires that forced much larger evacuations in Washington state and British Columbia earlier this month have moved into cleanup mode.

Crews fighting three wildfires near Spokane spent Sunday on "mop-up operations" near containment lines, according to a news release from the incident management team cited by PBS. None of the three fires were growing as of Sunday. Combined, they've damaged or destroyed roughly 920 structures over the past week.

Laurie Allen, who fled her home in Nine Mile Falls north of Spokane with her husband, dog, and two kittens, told PBS she learned through a friend that her house survived, covered in ash but intact. "I've been here 65 years. It's never happened," she said.

In British Columbia, the toll was more severe. More than 20,000 people were forced out of communities along Okanagan Lake over the weekend as a fast-moving fire destroyed homes and required aircraft rescues. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police confirmed an 80-year-old woman died trying to escape the blaze near Summerland.

Roughly 8,000 more people evacuated Peachland because of the Bald Range fire, first reported Friday evening. British Columbia declared a provincial state of emergency Saturday, and Canada's minister of emergency management, Eleanor Olszewski, said she approved British Columbia's request for federal help with shelter and accommodations.

The Spokane and Okanagan Lake fires were primarily residential disasters, destroying homes in populated areas. The Timber Fire is burning through a stretch of coastline built on tourism, and the businesses now under evacuation orders anchor the region's economy and its identity.

Nepenthe alone predates the interstate highway system. Losing it, or the roughly century-old log cabin on its property, would be a different kind of loss than a suburban house fire. It would erase a piece of California's cultural history, not just private property.

Cal Fire has not released a containment percentage for the Timber Fire as of Monday evening. With more than 600 additional firefighters expected to arrive this week and winds described as erratic, the fire's direction over the next several days remains the open question. Whether it turns back toward Highway 1's business corridor, as it has not yet done, will determine whether this becomes a story about scorched forest or about a permanently altered stretch of America's most photographed coastline.