From reports of residents at the southern perimeter of the fire this evening:
From 10am to 1pm there was heavy bombing on Dolan Ridge from Pt. Rust to Rock Slide. The fire has dropped into the upper reaches of Dolan Creek. There were engines reported at structures in the area. Helicopters were working Dolan ridge heavily throughout the day.
And all is reported to still be very quiet between Henry Miller and Partington.
Several notes from tonight’s community meeting with Mike Dietrich and the IC team along with Frank Pinney of the Local Fire Brigade:
– The fire team’s first priority right now is defending the Big Sur valley. Fire hot spots today are the canyon between Ventana and MAF/ Big Sur Station and the ridge above Captain Cooper. Captain Cooper is being protected at the road, with crews and engines in place throughout the area. Crews are in blocking positions defending the area where Blaze Engineering, Don McQueen’s house and the AT&T transponder are.
– The fire has not crossed Highway One at all. There is confidence that the crews on the road will hold this line, and even if spot fires do erupt there are spotters on hand who are prepared to manage this.
– Northern perimiter: The current strategy is to actively build dozer lines and drop retardant at the old Marble Cone lines, protecting the Palo Colorado area. The IC has requested the largest aircraft available for this, with a capacity several times greater than standard air tankers. A contingency plan is in place, cutting lines along White Rock Ridge to San Clemente Dam. (That’s about 5 miles south of Carmel Valley Village.)
– Southern perimiter: This is currently the second priority area. Current strategy is to take dozer lines at Dolan Ridge to the southern flank of the Indians fire to anchor the fire into the burned area. The IC feels very confident they will be able to hold this line.
– All the fires happening in the state are drawing upon resources. We are the #2 priority in the state and don’t have as many resources as we need. This fire is presently using resources from 40 states.
– The Fire Brigade strongly discourages residents from staying in the area. Frank expressed that this is the biggest fire they he has ever seen in Big Sur, and is certain that using the plans and tools that have been used in the past will not be adequate in this fire. The local Fire Brigade is now dedicated to structure protection using gel, since the evacuation is no longer requiring resources to be on call for local emergencies. The Brigade has procured a large amount of gel for this purpose – with the caveat that without adequate clearance, the gel is “a hope and a prayer.”
It can’t be stressed enough: Highway One is an active fire line and very dangerous to be on right now. Entering the area puts the lives of fire crews and civilians at risk.
– Apple Pie – fire is working down the ridge, coming through the Curtis’ property. There are mixed reports about structures lost. The IC has reported structures burned, the community has information from residents that report buildings are all intact. The IC team actively worked to defend structures on this ridge until it was deemed unsafe and crews were pulled from the area.
The IC reported a serious incident today, in which local residents at Apple Pie ridge were setting illegal backburns. Another resident reported the activity and the sheriff’s department gave orders to stop the activity immediately. The burns continued and an arrest was made.
– Partington: The ridge is cooling and no longer a hot spot. It is a priority to the local Brigade for infrastructure rebuilding, although the priority remains to protect structures in active fire zones.
– Pfeiffer State park: The fire is not in the park now, and crews are preparing for that possibility as fire moves down from Mt. Manuel.
– Electricity: The power is out in most of the valley for either strategic reasons, a line burn or both. The line is days, if not weeks away from being restored. Big Sur Wireless is on this power grid and expects service can be supported by the battery backups for up to four days.
Reported by phone from Steven Harper this afternoon:
The electricity has gone out for the whole valley between 1 and 2pm (at least from River Inn south.) This is presenting a particular concern for water pumps not on generator and communications.
Backfiring continues with crews at the Highway near east Molera, as well as along the north side of Captain Cooper road.
We have a helicopter working out of the pond and dumping water east of Highway 1 across from Loma Vista and in the Post Creek drainage next to Ventana. The fire is burning through the redwoods approaching the highway. Smoke is floating through the redwood trees like heavy fog. Although I haven’t been down to the highway a reporter from the San Jose Mercury drove into Post Ranch and says that a crew has trimmed back both sides of the highway with chain saws etc.
The helicopter occasionally makes a round trip to Mule Canyon so there must be a flair up in there again.
Post Ranch has CalFire trucks on the south shoulder below Billy Post’s house (where I’m writing from), about five trucks a hundred yards south of the pond along the fresh fire break. They came up earlier today and drove their truck through the Tree Houses area and Martin filled a flatbed truck with branches cleared away so that they’d have clearance.
The fire is burning slowly and aside from the whop whop whop of helicopters, thank you very much, it doesn’t look like a runaway fire and all the ground forces are in place to defend it from jumping the highway.
Report from John Farrington by phone this afternoon:
The fire continues to burn down Post Creek. There is heavy road clearing happening now in the vicinity of Loma Vista and the Deli on the east side of the highway.
The fire has burned down to Highway One between northbound mile markers 50-51 (near Molera). The fire there is totally controlled.
There are a number of crews working around Captain Cooper School doing clearing work.
Report from a local resident by phone today:
We drove the highway last night at 8:30pm from Nepenthe to Partington (but not up Partington) and there was no fire visible from the highway anywhere.
Torre Canyon is cool now, having burned out 10 days ago. The whole area is very quiet.
People walking through Torre canyon this morning are reporting the area is totally cool and there is no fire activity at all.
We have a visual from Ross Curtis that the homestead did burn.
Curtis’s have successfully saved 6 homes on Apple Pie ridge.
Looks like the Sheriff have come back to arrest the Curtis. Kodiak and others remain to fight the fire.
Frank Pinney has met with Incident Command regarding Ewoldsen area and is making contact with Mica regarding the fire issue.
Phenager Creek looks to be heating up. We can see smoke from rising billowing up. As Mica said, there’s a lot of fuel in the canyon.
Report by phone from Jonathan Farrington who just drove from Molera base camp to Ventana:
There is some fire burning very slowly right down to the highway between mileage marker 50 and 51 just before Molera state park.
Activity is pretty low at this time, the air is cool and clear at the lower levels. It remains very smoky and dense at the 1200 ft. level and higher.
There was a very active fire last night at Ventana – the dozer line was reinforced and is now 4 dozer lanes wide into the campground. Structures are still under threat but all buildings are intact. The property is 100% evacuated.
Report by phone from Steven Harper:
Based on views from Clear Ridge, the fire at Juan Higuera (just to the south of Ripplewood and north of the Grange) watershed on the east side of the highway was very active last night. The winds are calmer today and the fire is burning more slowly now. In most places the fire remains 200-500 ft. above the highway, with the exception of the state park firing range area near Molera, where the fire is burning very slowly right down to the highway. It is speculated that this may be a back burn.
There are no reports of the fire having crossed the highway at this time.
Up on Apple Pie there are still mixed reports on structures affected at the Curtis’. There has been confirmation from several sources that the Ewoldsen’s barn has burned.
Fire is still above Captain Cooper and the school is intact. There appears to be low fire activity there at this time and there are engines there to protect the structure.
Just spoke with Mica. They bought their own D4 dozer and got it in from Los Angeles on 24 hour notice just before the road closed. They’re defending their property. Blaze has a crew up Pheniger Creek. Fire last night burned through the meadow and Ewoldsen Knoll. Not sure if the homestead survived.
Could use a hotshot crew – 50 people up there could tamp down the fires. I’ve called around. No response yet.
Forest Service trucks etc. are parked on the road at the bottom of their driveway but nobody’s coming up. The crew changes every 8 hours, they go down and brief them, another crew comes in…
The CalFire Battalion Chief paid a visit this morning to let us know they’ll be parking some more engines up here. Water tenders were helping to refill the pond until about 3AM last night. The fire burned slowly, continuing toward the road. They’re positioning people so that when the fire reaches the road that’s where it will stop.
Turns out Dan Priano is a pretty good cook. We’ve been having some very nice meals. All our communication lines are open and we have electricity – and generators if needed. Locals are moving around in the backroads – the “Ridgerunners.” Nobody has gone Mad Max. We’re all staying in touch and safe.
No official briefings have been distributed through email since yesterday morning.
We had telephone contact this morning with Ross Curtis and the report from Apple Pie Ridge is that everyone is doing well.
Looking from Billy Post’s house across the canyon to the Post Creek watershed. The fire is settling down and hasn’t quite reached the freshly cut firebreak. There are hot shot crews working in the Post Creek watershed setting a back fire which seems to be working as planned. We’ve had some gusts of wind and some flare ups but for the most part nothing too alarming. Mostly burning the understory and a few trees got caught up in the rush.
Late this afternoon we had good helicopter coverage. A “heavy” was delivering some heavy doses of sea water and a couple more helicopters were putting the kabosh on some advancing fire lines.
Looking north to the Gorge there are some flare-ups on the south shoulder in brush and occasionally a glow rises up out of the Gorge. Earlier this evening the north shoulder of the Gorge was burning a bright ruby red in lines folding south-west.
Juan Higuera watershed and Ewoldson have had activity all night – much the same as last night – a broken line of fire moving down from the ridge.
All calm at Ventana Inn.
In the last 32 hours Post Ranch Inn has pumped 132,300 gallons of water into the pond and into the water tenders for this fire effort.
We’re doing shifts on fire watch. I slept from about 8pm to 10:15 and took over for Butch about 10:30 tonight. Marcus was up watching the fire. Mike Esparca, Jesus Gonzalez and I are hanging outside taking advantage of the T1 wi-fi and the warm evening. If not for the fires it would be a rockin’ nice evening.
Ice cold Corona beckons. Happy 4th of July.
SurFire2008 Blog 