Big Sur fire: Ventana Inn, Nepenthe restaurant evacuated as fire doubles in size

Paul Rogers, The Mercury News on Aug 10, 2026

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SAN JOSE, Calif. — A fire that started Saturday night in steep, rugged terrain in Big Sur doubled in size Monday, prompting evacuations of the Ventana Inn, Nepenthe restaurant and other popular tourist attractions.

The Timber fire, burning in Los Padres National Forest east of Highway 1, was 800 acres with 5% containment by 10 a.m. PDT Monday.

There were no reports of injuries or destroyed structures but the fire has the potential to spread significantly and burn for a while, experts said. Big Sur has had several massive fires over the past 20 years in part due to its lack of roads, mountainous landscape and limited water sources, which make firefighting difficult.

The fire started at 9:38 p.m. on Saturday in an area north of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, famous for McWay Falls, a waterfall featured in countless photographs that flows into the ocean in a scenic cove. The blaze began inland, near the Coast Ridge Road a private road along the ridgeline overlooking Highway 1, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

“It kind of moved in all directions,” said Adrienne Freeman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service. “It started on the top of the ridge and spilled over to the east and then came back to the west.”

Freeman said that crews from Cal Fire and the Forest Service are fighting the blaze.

“It burned actively overnight,” she said. “We hit it hard with aircraft yesterday.”

So far Monday, winds have been mild, with some fog, which is helping fire crews. But temperatures were forecast to rise into the 80s by the afternoon.

“It is extremely dry,” she said. This winter didn’t give us a whole lot of advantage. It wasn’t going to take much.”

As of Sunday evening, the Timber fire had burned 400 acres and was initially described as 20% contained. By Monday morning it had doubled. Monterey County sheriff’s officials expanded a mandatory evacuation order from an area about 1 mile south of Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park to an area 1 mile north of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.

That landscape includes some of them most popular tourist attractions in the Big Sur area, including Nepenthe, Ventana Inn and campground, Post Ranch Inn, Deetjen’s Inn, and the Henry Miller Library.

Big Sur has seen major fires over the past few decades including the Dolan fire, which burned 125,000 acres in 2020, and the Basin fire, which burned 162,000 acres in 2008.

“We are all really cognizant of how these fires go,” Freeman said adding that fuel breaks cut in recent years in the affected area could be of help in this fire. “We’ve done this a lot of times. We need to get on it quickly and hit it hard. We need to work on this together. We recognize the values at risk here.”

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