(From my blog in 2010) “Today is the longest day of the year, and also the anniversary of the Basin Fire of 2008, the event that launched this blog. Today, I hope to reflect back on that time, and post a couple of photographs I took that day, if the Internet Goddess allows. The first two photographs are mine, but scroll down for the stories and photographs of others. I have also provided a link where others shared their stories last year, and more are doing so this year. What an amazing gift we have in each other!” You can read the rest of the blog, the stories, and more here: https://bigsurkate.blog/2010/06/21/summer-solstice-basin-fire/
Also, because a reader who wasn’t following me back in 2008 asked for information about these fires, I made public the collection of posts I put together back then of the blog posts from both the Basin and the Chalk Fires of 2008, reproduced as originally written — warts, misspellings, and all. You can find it to the right under “Pages” — Big Sur Fires, 2008. I found it interesting to re-read (my writing has changed a lot) and see the photos from those times.
Nadine Clark has this framed and hanging on her wall:
Sounds like the movie The Blob doesn’t it? Today marks the start of my 10th year doing this blog. So much history has been recorded as it was occurring…some painful, some joyful and sometimes, just pretty photographs for an escape and calm.
I recreated and published the story of how the blog came to be a year later in 2009. I re-posted it last year, as well, BEFORE the Soberanes Fire took over my life. I’ll reprint that below, edited for clarity. I am working on a complex article that I hope to have ready by tomorrow. So, absent an emergency, I am working on tomorrow’s post today.
“I cannot find my notes, and I did not write in my journal for much of July, as I was far too busy, … I am recreating the day [July 4, 2008] based primarily on a memory with holes in it – swiss cheese holes – a moth-eaten sweater. I also have no photographs taken that day, at least that I can find. The road was closed, as previously posted.
When I first got a copy of the 409.5 memo on 7/4, I called OES (Office of Emergency Services), and they had a Commander Teter of the MCSO call me back. When I got no satisfactory explanation about the issuance of the memo, other than it was to “educate” the Big Sur community about the power the MCSO had, I was furious. The MCSO was flexing its muscles and declaring a police-state in Big Sur, and fully intended on arresting who ever got in their way.
It was a holiday. Everything was closed. What could I do? The only places open were newsrooms. Having lived and worked in Monterey County, much of that in the justice system, I knew I needed to go outside of the county. I called the LA Times newsroom and the SF Chronicle newsroom. I posted something on surfire2008.org. Before my post was removed from surfire2008, Deborah Schoch, a staff reporter from the LA Times called. After speaking with her for some time, I got her phone numbers, and said I’d pass it on to a member of the Curtis family who was not in Big Sur, and if they wanted, they could pass it on to Micah and Ross. This resulted in more phone calls, and more long conversations with Curtis family members and LA Times reporter, Eric Bailey. Only a few days later, he and Deborah Schoch published a 3-page article about the police state in Big Sur. It [was] accessible at: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-backfire7-2008jul07,0,3314737.story
This was the start of the battle between Big Sur Locals and Mike Kanalakis, Sheriff of Monterey County. Kanalakis also made the mistake of taking on Cachagua in Carmel Valley. Both were big mistakes.
Thanks to Jim Kimball for archiving posts from surfire2008 and other sources, we have an excellent record of all that happened on this day last year. It was a busy day, with reports from locals coming in up and down the coast all day long. Let’s not forget what it was like to live in this police state from July 3, 2008 to July 8, 2008, when the road opened to locals and their employees, and July 11, 2008 when the road opened completely….”
And here we are in 2017, and the road is closed yet again, but for completely different reasons. July has always been an interesting month. Let’s hope for a little bit of boring this year, shall we?
Used to be, all my readers knew how this site came to be. Now, only a few do. I started this blog 8 years ago because I got pissed off at the sheriff. It’s not wise to piss off a lawyer who has made her living going up against various forms of the government, especially law enforcement. If you want to read the early entries, go to the pull-down menu to the right for archives, and pull down and click on July 2008. I wrote over 50 entries that month. Eight years later, I have written 2,747 entries. Damn, how did that happen? I have had over a million, 100 thousand views. I thought this blog would have closed after the Basin Fire, but the Chalk Fire came on its heels, and by then the die was cast.
I got pissed off because of this:
Note the date and the time of this. 6 pm on the eve of a 3 day weekend. I got a copy on July 4 – Independence Day. I was pissed and went into overdrive. I stayed awake for almost 24 hours in order to combat this order and to learn how to blog. (It wasn’t as easy back then as it is now.) On July 5, 2008, I published both my first and second blog posts. This was the first:
“I began this blog, after 2 weeks of inundating everyone’s mailbox with news, links, editorials, and photos of the massive Big Sur Fire of 2008. I decided a blog might be a better venue for us all to stay connected, share information, and remain informed. PLUS, I got totally frustrated when my email send function became so erratic. I can receive, but sending is completely hit and miss. I am hoping the email fairy visits me soon!😉
I will also be posting some of my photographs, also, as and when I can.
Welcome! Once the fire is past, I will convert this to random musings, I suppose, or it will evolve into something else.”
Boy did it ever evolve into something else – something I could not even imagine back then.
A year later, I recounted as best I could, what happened those first few days. I wrote:
“July 4, 2008 – I cannot find my notes, and I did not write in my journal for much of July, as I was far too busy, but I started my blog one year ago tomorrow, so some of the story about last Independence Day was reported then. I am recreating the day, based primarily on a memory with holes in it – swiss cheese holes – a moth-eaten sweater. I also have no photographs taken that day, at least that I can find. The road was closed, as previously posted.
When I first got a copy of the 409.5 memo on 7/4, I called OES (Office of Emergency Services), and they had a Commander Teter of the MCSO call me back. When I got no satisfactory explanation about the issuance of the memo, other than it was to “educate” the Big Sur community about the power the MCSO had, I was furious. The MCSO was flexing its muscles and declaring a police-state in Big Sur, and fully intended on arresting who ever got in their way.
It was a holiday. Everything was closed. What could I do? The only places open were newsrooms. Having lived and worked in Monterey County, much of that in the justice system, I knew I needed to go outside of the county. I called the LA Times newsroom and the SF Chronicle newsroom. I posted something on surfire2008.org. Before my post was removed from surfire2008, Deborah Schoch, a staff reporter from the LA Times called. After speaking with her for some time, I got her phone numbers, and said I’d pass it on to a member of the Curtis family who was not in Big Sur, and if they wanted, they could pass it on to Micah and Ross. This resulted in more phone calls, and more long conversations with Curtis family members and LA Times reporter, Eric Bailey. Only a few days later, he and Deborah Schoch published a 3-page article about the police state in Big Sur. It is no longer accessible unfortunately.
This was the start of the battle between Big Sur Locals and the Mike Kanalakis, Sheriff of Monterey County. Kanalakis also made the mistake of taking on Cachagua in Carmel Valley. Both were big mistakes.
Thanks to Jim Kimball for archiving posts from surfire2008 and other sources, we have an excellent record of all that happened on this day last year. It was a busy day, with reports from locals coming in up and down the coast all day long. Let’s not forget what it was like to live in this police state from July 3, 2008 to July 8, 2008, when the road opened to locals and their employees, and July 11, 2008 when the road opened completely.
Go to this link, and scroll down. It is arranged as all blogs tend to be, with the older posts first, or backwards chronology. Just scroll down to July 4th and start reading. It is fascinating:
So, Big Sur, and lovers of Big Sur, we celebrate our independence, along with our country’s independence and may we never forget the battles we have fought against oppressive government entities in both 1776 and in 2008. Happy Independence Day. Keep strong, and battle on when needed.
Tonight, at the Henry Miller Memorial Library at 8 pm, the author of the just released book about the five monks who stayed at Tassajara to save the retreat from the Basin Fire, “Fire Monks” will be present for a reading and autographs of the book which was just released yesterday. Also present will be David Zimmerman for a slide presentation of some of the photos taken of this amazing and heart-warming event. He, as the director of the center, and four others stayed behind, without any professional firefighting back-up and saved the center from the devastating effects of this savage fire. I have had a link here for 3 years, to the right of those photos (but haven’t checked it in quite a while to see if it is still valid) – there are amazing, as were the challenges these five faced.
Just a word of warning for those affected by the Basin Fire: It is very moving account and I found myself reliving some of my own experiences of both the Basin and Chalk Fires.
Warning for the rest of you: It is a page-turner. Don’t pick it up unless you have the afternoon free. I read my copy last night and this morning. Wouldn’t have gone to sleep at all, but I was pretty tired and had a busy day today!
Today is the longest day of the year, and also the anniversary of the Basin Fire of 2008, the event that launched this blog. Today, I hope to reflect back on that time, and post a couple of photographs I took that day, if the Internet Goddess allows. The first two photographs are mine, but scroll down for the stories and photographs of others. I have also provided a link where others shared their stories last year, and more are doing so this year. What an amazing gift we have in each other! 6:30 pm, June 21, 2008 9:00 pm, June 21, 2008
To those of you still rebuilding after losing your homes to this monster fire, you are in our hearts this day. And some of you may be interested in reading the stories some readers told about this day when I asked for stories a year ago, for others it may be still too painful. You can read them here.
Ken Harlan, of Lucia Lodge, just sent me this note and the following three photographs.
Here are three photos from the start of the fire. When the lighting started that day, I drove north to watch for strikes. The first photo is about 15 minutes after the strike that lit the fire. I was watching that ridge through binoculars as it was hit in the middle of the “black” knoll just below the active flame front. The grass was burning very slowly for about 5 minutes, and then the back side of the cell came through. The winds nearly knocked me down (I’d guess 50+ MPH) and the flames were in the trees 2-3 minutes later.
The next two photos (which I’ll attach to 2 emails to follow) are taken from the west side of 1 at Coast Gallery. Two guys fought to save that cabin on the rocky point to the right in the helicopter shot. Sadly, it later burned. I don’t know the guys or the owner of the cabin, but I always hope to get these photos to them (and I have some more).
It’s more than a little sad to recall that day. Basin Fire #1 by Ken Harlan Basin Fire #2, by Ken Harlan Basin Fire #3, by Ken Harlan
Ken, thank you so much for sharing your story and images with all of us.
Avis was coming home from a town run in Monterey headed south on June 21, 2008, when she first saw the fire. She has sent the next three photos for us to enjoy, with this explanation about the photos. (her story is posted on the stories post previously mentioned):
“Okay here are 3 shots. The first one is what I saw when I rounded the corner before the gallery and first saw the knoll on fire. This was within 2 hours of the fire starting. The second one I like because of the fire tornado. It’s a little out of focus but I was using a cheap camera and the zoom was all the way in. I just like the power it represent in a fire. [ed. note: firefighters call these fire whirls, and I have posted additional info on them under the photograph.] And the last was how huge it got within the few minutes I sat there watching.” Basin Fire #1, by Avis Latone Basin Fire #2, by Avis Latone
“Fire Whirls In California…A Firefighter’s Perspective
Royal Burnett March 15, 2008
Fire whirls are one of the most visual and least understood aspects of extreme fire behavior. Many a good plan has been wrecked and lots of firefighters have been burned over as a result of these events. Fire whirls used to be considered rare occurrences, but with the advent of a multiple year drought, increased communications and digital cameras, fire whirls are reported on a more routine basis.
Fire whirls happen infrequently for a brief duration. There is no recording system. The event happens in terrain that varies from flat to very broken mountains, in conditions of no wind to moderate and perhaps high winds, in fuels that vary from light to heavy, so it is nearly impossible to define the conditions under which fire whirls can appear.
We know that fire whirls can develop from energy release or from wind shear caused by the wind interacting with topographic features. Occasionally the convection column is strong enough to form an obstacle to the prevailing wind and fire whirls will develop in the lee of the column.” Basin Fire #3, by Avis Latone
Avis, thank you so much for sharing your images and story with all of the rest of us. We are blessed in so many ways in this community.
July 4, 2008 – I cannot find my notes, and I did not write in my journal for much of July, as I was far too busy, but I started my blog one year ago tomorrow, so some of the story about last Independence Day was reported then. I am recreating the day, based primarily on a memory with holes in it – swiss cheese holes – a moth-eaten sweater. I also have no photographs taken that day, at least that I can find. The road was closed, as previously posted.
When I first got a copy of the 409.5 memo on 7/4, I called OES (Office of Emergency Services), and they had a Commander Teter of the MCSO call me back. When I got no satisfactory explanation about the issuance of the memo, other than it was to “educate” the Big Sur community about the power the MCSO had, I was furious. The MCSO was flexing its muscles and declaring a police-state in Big Sur, and fully intended on arresting who ever got in their way.
It was a holiday. Everything was closed. What could I do? The only places open were newsrooms. Having lived and worked in Monterey County, much of that in the justice system, I knew I needed to go outside of the county. I called the LA Times newsroom and the SF Chronicle newsroom. I posted something on surfire2008.org. Before my post was removed from surfire2008, Deborah Schoch, a staff reporter from the LA Times called. After speaking with her for some time, I got her phone numbers, and said I’d pass it on to a member of the Curtis family who was not in Big Sur, and if they wanted, they could pass it on to Micah and Ross. This resulted in more phone calls, and more long conversations with Curtis family members and LA Times reporter, Eric Bailey. Only a few days later, he and Deborah Schoch published a 3-page article about the police state in Big Sur. It is still accessible at: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-backfire7-2008jul07,0,3314737.story
This was the start of the battle between Big Sur Locals and the Mike Kanalakis, Sheriff of Monterey County. Kanalakis also made the mistake of taking on Cachagua in Carmel Valley. Both were big mistakes.
Thanks to Jim Kimball for archiving posts from surfire2008 and other sources, we have an excellent record of all that happened on this day last year. It was a busy day, with reports from locals coming in up and down the coast all day long. Let’s not forget what it was like to live in this police state from July 3, 2008 to July 8, 2008, when the road opened to locals and their employees, and July 11, 2008 when the road opened completely.
Go to this link, and scroll down. It is arranged as all blogs tend to be, with the older posts first, or backwards chronology. Just scroll down to July 4th and start reading. It is fascinating:
July 3rd, 2008, one year ago today, the MCSO issued its infamous memo.
All our representative’s offices were closed for the long week-end. I am convinced to this day that the timing was purposeful. Can’t call Dave Potter’s office, can’t call Sam Farr’s office. Who can I connect to change this newly created “police state” in Big Sur. LA Times & San Fran Chronicle both come to mind. So, I call them. I provided the same story, but the LA Times was the most interested. Then, Ross Curtis got arrested.
(To be continued tomorrow.)
The Basin Fire started 11 days before this date one year ago today. One year ago, today, Highway One was closed due to the fire. Today, I start a retrospective for the next few days.
That morning, I had hung out the Flag as I always do each July. Then I left Big Sur for SF to do an appearance on KGO’s View from the Bay, ironically talking about fire safe plants and my experiences as a firefighter. While I was gone, the fire met several “trigger” points in the gorge and atop Mt. Manuel. I was on my way home when I got the news that the highway was being closed at 7pm.
When I rounded the corner at the lighthouse, I saw the extent of the fire. Pico Blanco was fully ablaze and other fires were working down the Golden Staircase in Molera. Heavy smokes spouted from Cielo Prieto and Mt. Manuel. I was the only truck heading south and was waved by from CHP and Sheriff. When I reached Front Hill, the last residents were scrambling off the hill wild eyed and dusty.
I was scattered and alone on the ranch.
The dogs paced and fussed and the smoke was dropping down with the sunset. I went out on the atv to scope the now nearly empty ridges. I shot this photo of the house with the flag moving slowly in the sunset. The house looked so vulnerable, unable to stop the angry orange smoke.
The Gallery Fire, as it was named originally, started this date.
If you would like to see a blow-by-blow account of the first 5 days, complete with photos and maps by one who knows the back country like no other, click the link below: xasauan
Here is a photo taken that day at 7:30 pm by Dave Egbert after he was released from the fire. Thanks, Dave for sending this and allowing me to share it with my readers.
Here is one I took the next day from my house.
I call this “Smoke Dance.”
Happy Solstice and Happy Father’s Day! Don’t forget the rally at the State Park today, starting at 2 pm. Should be a wonderful time. Unfortunately, I have to work today, but I’ll be thinking of all of you celebrating souls, wherever you may be.
Many of us will never forget where we were on June 21, 2008, watching the incredible lightning that literally sparked what was originally the Gallery Fire, morphed into the devastating Basin Fire.
In commemoration of this life-changing event, I invite everyone to tell the story of that day, or a part of it, or the next day, or what you remember, or the year since it occurred, or what it has meant for you. You don’t have to live in Big Sur, but if you follow this blog, then your heart is here, and you were here in spirit when you first heard the news. You can either leave it in the comment section for this post, or send me a private email at kwnovoa@mac.com
I will keep it anonymous, use an aka, or not publish at all, whatever you choose.
All this week, until the anniversary of the fire, I will leave this post up at the top, so that we can all share what that day and this year has meant. Please join me in sharing your experience, publicly or privately.
Thank you, bigsurkate.
Still adding a few posts this week, immediately below this one, so scroll down to see Paul’s Memorial and other photos to be added.
