Soberanes Fire, Day 40, 8/30/16

From the USFS around 11 am – “The #SoberanesFire is getting more active in the Big Sur River drainage and smoke is now visible from the Highway 1 and the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. The fire is burning pockets of unburned fuel in the river drainage and is not threatening containment lines at this point. Four helicopters are enroute to drop water on the active fire to guide it down the river drainage. The increased activity is a result of increased winds and low relative humidity. We will keep you posted.”

From Linda Rowland-Jones last night on Partington:

John Chesnut map:

From last night’s community meeting in Big Sur at MAF:

Detailed briefing from the Alaska Team IC and a return of a familiar face in Air Operations Chief Mark Nunez, who served as IC for Pfeiffer Fire. Nunez has been working Soberanes since the first week. Good air operations near Partington today to slow western progress. With existing winds, western side of the fire is priority one. Near Jamesburg and Tassajara, Jamesburg, Cachagua Community News area, structure protection crews continue their assessments. Google Earth images of fire also reviewed so public could see fire lines, dozer lines and contingency lines.

Yesterday afternoon looking East from Partington Cove, photo by Suzy Cowman Tennyson:

4:45 am – Today’s Maps

And each day the two fires appear to grow closer together by 1 mile per the USFS calculations:

Soberanes to Chimney Map in PDF (at least the Chimney has stopped growing.)

IR Topo Map in PDF

So Ops Map in PDF

Here are the fire and weather predictions