Weary firefighters made progress Sunday against two California wildfires near the towns of Goleta and Big Sur, exploiting a lull in winds before rising temperatures and possible lightning storms arrive later this week.
After two weeks of little gain, fire officials in Monterey County said a series of backfires started overnight helped reinforce containment lines between flames and homes near Big Sur and a Boy Scout camp farther north. Firefighters said the 74,985-acre blaze, burning in the Los Padres National Forest, was 11% contained by Sunday morning, up from 5% the previous evening.
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.
Meanwhile, the Gap fire, burning in Santa Barbara County, grew overnight by nearly 700 acres, primarily on the brushy and undeveloped west end of the blaze. The fire has charred 9,924 acres since it started Tuesday night, fire officials said at 6 p.m. Sunday. Officials said crews were able to largely solidify the lines along the eastern and southern edges of the fire, where most of the homes at risk are located. The fire was 30% contained.
"This is still a gorilla," said Wally Bennett of the Northern Rockies National Incident Management Team, the Gap fire's new incident commander, at a 6 a.m. briefing Sunday. "We have a lot of work to do on it and a lot of bad country to work on it in. It's just one step at a time."
Winds and humidity levels on both fires eased slightly overnight, and temperatures remained in the mid-80s and mid-90s. But fire officials were concerned about a heat wave forecast to strike the Central Coast on Tuesday, raising temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday into the 90s and 100s.
A possible monsoonal flow could bring lightning as well as more erratic winds, said Rich Thompson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Fire officials said the Basin Complex fire, near Big Sur, was pressing against containment lines in the south, and in the east was moving toward the narrow gravel road that leads to the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, where a group of monks remained behind to fight the flames.
More than 2,200 firefighters were joined by a fleet of 19 water-dropping helicopters and a DC-10 jet in Big Sur. Fire officials plan to employ a large Canadian water-dropping plane, the Martin Mars tanker aircraft, which is billed as the world's biggest such craft.
