Volatile weather and cloud-to-ground lightning strikes across the region forced firefighting crews tackling the expansive Timber Fire in Big Sur to retreat to safety
The raging blaze has resulted in total closure of regional state parks, and hundreds of residents have been ordered to flee the area as emergency crews struggle to contain the blaze.
Cal Fire reports 503 structures remain heavily threatened, including world-renowned luxury resorts such as the Alila Ventana Big Sur and the Post Ranch Inn.
Matt Mehle, an incident meteorologist with the U.S. Forest Service, said Wednesday that low clouds kept parts of the Highway 1 coast relatively damp, while higher Big Sur ridges remained dangerously dry and vulnerable to fast-moving, wind-driven fire.
The Timber Fire had burned through 4245 acres and was just 7% contained by Thursday morning, with the greatest concern along its southern and western edges near scattered homes around Partington Ridge Road.
“We actually did have upper-level moisture move over the fire, that led to showers and actually some thunderstorms,” Mehle said in a social media update Wednesday, adding that a “pesky marine layer” kept low clouds “hugging the coast” while higher elevations stayed parched.
He added that the upper ridges on the fire line are not seeing the same moisture levels as the lower elevations. “The crews that are working the fire line along Coast Ridge Road, they’re seeing very dry conditions, much different weather than the crews are seeing down on Highway One,” said Mehle.
Fire Behavior Analyst Morgan Diefenbach explained that while showers can raise humidity for a short time, they do not erase the risk that storms will spark new blazes away from the main fire.
“While relative humidity is temporarily increased over the fire area with that precipitation, lightning obviously is problematic for us because it can cause new starts outside of the existing fire perimeter… Sometimes it takes those smokes a little while to pop up or to be detected,” Diefenbach said.
The firefighters reengaged with the Timber Fire Wednesday evening amid possibilities of isolated showers and thunderstorms.
A response force of 1,405 personnel, 25 engines, and 6 helicopters are actively engaged and taking advantage of high humidity under a heavy marine layer at lower elevations, San Benito-Monterey Unit of CAL FIRE said in an update Thursday morning.
Firefighters worked overnight to successfully establish lines down to the Big Sur River on the northern side and worked down Partington Ridge toward Highway 1 on the southern end to protect nearby structures.
Highway 1 remains closed between Mile Post Marker 45.1 near Big Sur Bakery and Mile Marker 37 near Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.
