All,
Shortly after 09:00 this morning the Fire Brigade was paged out for a vegetation fire in Partington Cove. State Parks maintenance had seen it and reported it. They started to fight the fire with their hand tools the best they could. Brigade Captain Jon Knight was on scene very quickly with one more FF and gave an excellent size up, about a 100′ x 100′ area burning on the East side of the highway about a 1/4 mile up the canyon. All the homes up on Partington were in the cross hairs once again. We started SO in case any evacuations were needed.
As the other Brigade members arrived on scene they did an excellent job controlling the fire, and deploying a pump in the river for a continuous water supply. They were able to stop the spread in short order avoiding what could have been a devastating result had it spread up the hillside to the homes above.
This was again an example of the initial response by the Fire Brigade making a difference! We had an excellent response, with over a dozen Brigade members and 3 engines on scene and 2 water tenders cancelled enroute. USFS E17 and B12 also arrived on scene and several hours later we turned the fire area over to them. They were going to stay in the area until this evening and then come back again tomorrow to make sure there were no flare ups.
This fire was started by an illegal campfire, 2 nights ago we were paged out for 2 other campfires, one of which was cited. It is unbelievable to me why with half the state on fire anyone would think it was a good idea to have any fire.
A good job well done by all!!
Martha Karstens,
BSVFB Fire Chief
The problem, in my opinion from experiences, is that, as mentioned by Kate in another post, Mo.Co. doesn’t want to…. oh, I don’t know…. give tourists tickets because that might upset them and they won’t come spend money– they actually don’t anyway, because they’re illegally camping…. but I often go up to illegal campers and act like I’m a tourist in the area and I ask them how they’re camping there if it’s illegal (I’ve done this many times in PV) and almost always I get a form of the same reply. ‘Oh, we’re from Santa Cruz so we know they don’t enforce illegal camping anywhere in Big Sur.’ Sometimes they even invite me to set up my illegal site right near there’s. Oh, how nice. smh
I AM, however, happy to hear that ONE out of THREE were cited, but dumbfounded as to why all 3 weren’t when all were found at the scene (or near, in the Partington case)
Kate,
I am guessing the local authorities seem content to let this practice go on with no action – truly astonishing- residents should be pissed! Politicians: Do you have anything to say about this? Sam Farr or Jimmy Panenta…Who has the money to bail out another catastrophic community fire?
Yay to Martha and the local Fire Fighters! Wonderful job! Phew! You guys are the Best!
Too bad we can’t make them get up close and personal with the devastating fires. Maybe spend a little “quality time” shifting through the rubble, looking for bone fragments, and accompanying officials when they have to delivery the sad news.
That might help with the “not me” “not my problem” attitude.
We should pour water (or worse) on these camping firing idiots and hang them out to dry on Hwy 1 for all to see!
Carry a shovel and gallons of H2O and put out the campfires along the roads that you travel. Be proactive! Signs don’t work.
We could also all have a fire extinguisher in our cars.
Good idea!
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