SAN JOSE, Calif. — A fire that started Saturday night in steep, rugged terrain in Big Sur tripled in size Monday, prompting evacuations of luxury resorts including the Ventana Big Sur hotel and Post Ranch Inn, along with the Nepenthe restaurant and other popular tourist attractions.

The Timber fire, burning in Los Padres National Forest east of Highway 1, was 1,300 acres with 5% containment by 1 p.m. Monday.

There were no reports of injuries or destroyed structures, but the fire has the potential to spread significantly and burn for a while, fire officials 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.”

The cause of the fire remains under investigation, Freeman said Monday. 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.”

Monday morning winds were mild, with some fog, which helped 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.”

Nepenthe, a famed restaurant on the Big Sur Coast for generations, was open Sunday, but closed Monday, said co-owner Holly Fassett.

“They came around last night around midnight. They were knocking on people’s doors and said it was time to leave,” Fassett said. “If you didn’t want to go, you had to sign a piece of paper.”

Fassett, whose family has owned the Nepenthe restaurant in Big Sur since her parents bought the land from Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth in 1947, said she has suitcases packed. A lifelong resident, she has seen wildfires, mudslides and other calamities come and go along Big Sur, whose scenic coastline and stunning mountains have inspired poems, books, songs and movies.

“The fire definitely could reach the restaurant,” she said. “It’s very close. But it would have to cross the highway. There are firefighters coming from all over. You just don’t know. It’s like a wild animal. You don’t know what it is really going to do. It’s worrisome but I’m still hopeful.”

There were roughly 300 firefighters working the fire Monday, along with at least two helicopters and three fixed-wing planes dropping retardant, Cal Fire Battalion Chief Josh Silveira said.

Because of the steep terrain of the Santa Lucia Range, fire crews have been mostly working on foot and with engines, he said. Complicating matters, when they begin to make progress in the area, a mix of forest and chaparral and grassy ridge tops, sometimes burning logs are rolling down hills, starting new fires in canyons below — a threat firefighters call “roll out.”

“I’ve been a firefighter in Monterey County since 2002,” he said. “Every fire I’ve ever been to along the Big Sur Coast has been challenging. A lot of this is a hike-in event. It’s very difficult, unforgiving terrain.”

Silveira said that the fire began near the Timber Top Trail, commonly known as the Boronda Trail. The trail is a steep 6-mile round-trip hike in Los Padres National Forest, offering sweeping panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean.

So far, this year has been a mild fire year in California. From Jan. 1 through Monday, 251,364 acres have burned statewide on areas overseen by Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service. That’s 25% less than this time last year, when 336,196 acres had burned. And it is 49% fewer acres than the previous 5-year average over the same time, of 489,745 acres.

Nevertheless, there are dozens of major fires burning across the West, in Oregon, Washington, Nevada and other states, which are straining resources, and equipment is being requested to be moved to Big Sur from Southern California, Silveira said.

Matt Harris, chief of Big Sur Fire, the volunteer department serving the area, noted the shortage of resources.

“We are seeing unprecedented need across the Western U.S. for the exact same resources,” Harris wrote in a message to Big Sur residents, “which leaves fewer for us when we need them. Crews are inbound from all over the country to help us and this takes time.”

Harris said his agency worked through the night on the blaze, but it grew too fast.

“Big Sur Fire was first on scene of the Timber Fire with engines, water tenders and all of our firefighters,” he wrote. “Crews worked all through the night to try and contain the fire, but due to roll out and limited resources, it became obvious that the Timber Fire would become an extended incident.”

On 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 Partington Point, an area 1 mile north of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.

The landscape under mandatory evacuation includes some of the most popular tourist attractions in the Big Sur area, including Nepenthe, Alila Ventana Big Sur hotel and campground, Post Ranch Inn, Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn, and the Henry Miller Memorial Library.

“We are going to do our very best to mitigate damage to any structures,” Silveira said. “Our first concern is life and then property. We understand Big Sur is a huge draw for visitors, tourists and locals. We want to do everything we can to ensure those structures stay intact.”

This week is the annual Car Week in Monterey County, which draws thousands of classic car enthusiasts and other visitors from around the world to car shows such as the Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach and the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, a race involving vintage and collector cars at Laguna Seca race track between Monterey and Salinas.

Fire officials asked them to steer clear of Big Sur this year.

“With Car Week coming up, we understand there is a huge draw for people to use Highway 1 and go for rides to Big Sur,” Silveira said. “But with the fire, we want to encourage people to find another way to enjoy Car Week. Stay in the Carmel area and allow the emergency responders the space they need.”

Big Sur has seen major fires over the past few decades. The Dolan fire burned 125,000 acres in 2020, destroying 14 homes and resulting in the arsonist who set it being sentenced in 2022 to 24 years in prison. The Soberanes Fire blackened 132,000 acres in 2016, destroying 57 homes and killing one person after being started by an illegal campfire. And the Basin Complex Fire, which was started by lighting in 2008, burned 162,000 acres.

“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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