SACRAMENTO — Firefighters on Tuesday continued to battle a fusillade of wildfires plaguing Northern California, including a destructive blaze that has charred homes and threatened tourist haunts along the Big Sur coast.
With more than 425,000 acres burned, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the California National Guard to deploy ground forces for the first time in three decades to help weary firefighters battling blazes from Kern County to the Oregon border.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, July 08, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 49 words Type of Material: Correction
Big Sur fire: A map with an article in Monday's Section A about the Basin Complex fire, as well as maps of the fire in other recent editions, showed Big Sur's Nepenthe Restaurant on the east side of Highway 1. It is on the west side of the highway.
Flames dogged the Big Sur coast in the Los Padres National Forest, where they have destroyed 16 coastal homes and continue to threaten 1,200 more residences and some famed local institutions.
U.S. Forest Service officials ordered about 200 people along a sparsely populated, 20-mile stretch of coast south of the town of Big Sur to evacuate late Tuesday afternoon as a precautionary measure to allow controlled burns intended to solidify containment lines, said John Ahman, a spokesman for the agency.
Among the spots evacuated, he said, were the Esalen Institute and the Immaculate Heart Hermitage.
At 9:40 p.m., residents were ordered to evacuate two canyons above Goleta because of a new fire that broke out earlier in the evening in the Los Padres National Forest. The so-called Gap fire started about 5:45 p.m. on a ridge above the Santa Barbara County community; the cause was unknown, a spokesman said. The evacuation order was mandatory in Glen Annie and La Patera canyons, and an evacuation warning was issued for residents above Cathedral Oaks Road, between Glen Annie Road and Fairview Avenue.
In the Big Sur area, containment lines were being laid down in an effort to hem in the Basin Complex fire, which has proved to be the most destructive of the more than 1,400 lightning-sparked fires that have racked the northern part of the state since June 21.
Of the 29 homes destroyed statewide in the blazes, most were nestled on the panoramic hillsides rising from the Big Sur coast.
Weather continued to help firefighters in Big Sur to control the blaze, which has charred nearly 50,000 acres. Fog is expected through the week, and winds from the north continued to push the blaze back on itself, slowing its march toward the region's most populated areas.
"I would say we're cautiously optimistic with the current conditions," Ahman said. "With the marine layer and light winds, we haven't had any huge runs by the fire."
