Big Sur wildfire causes evacuations as Harris visits state to tout federal plan
As Vice-President Kamala Harris visited California to highlight new funding for fighting wildfires, hundreds of residents in the Big Sur area in the north of the state were told to evacuate due to a new blaze as authorities were forced to shut its main roadway.
Harris visited on Friday. On Saturday, firefighters were battling the blaze that broke out in rugged mountains along Big Sur on Friday night in a steep canyon and quickly spread toward the sea, fanned by strong winds up to 50mph.
The blaze burned at least 2.3 square miles of brush and redwood trees, said Cecile Juliette, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“The fire lined up with the wind and the terrain and that gave the fire a lot of energy to make a big run,” she said.
Authorities made contact with about 500 residents, urging them to evacuate the sparsely populated area between Carmel and Big Sur. More than 250 firefighters, aided by water-dropping aircraft, contained about 20% of the blaze by Saturday evening.
“The winds have died down and that has worked in our favor,” Juliette said.
Authorities closed a stretch of Highway 1 with no estimated time for reopening. The two-lane highway along Big Sur is prone to closures due to fire and mudslides from heavy rain made portions of the roadway collapse last year and in 2017.
Evacuees shared dramatic images of flames burning behind Bixby Bridge, a tall concrete span that has been the backdrop of car commercials, movies and TV shows, most recently the HBO drama Big Little Lies.
Strong winds were recorded across the San Francisco Bay Area, knocking down trees and power lines and causing outages to at least 18,000 Pacific Gas & Electric customers in the region, the utility said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
In Sonoma county, firefighters extinguished a five-acre fire on Geyser Peak, where gusts above 90mph were recorded. In the Sierra Nevada, the winds topped 141mph near the summit of Kirkwood Mountain Resort, shutting several ski lifts.
In southern California, a peak gust of 90mph was recorded in the mountains east of Santa Clarita. Strong winds developed across the region, toppling trees and powerlines.
The National Weather Service said a similar windy event happened in Bay Area nearly a year ago. A red flag warning of extreme fire danger was issued then due to the strong winds and much drier conditions. This time, the region received a reprieve from December storms that dumped heavy snow in the mountains and partially refilled parched reservoirs.
However, Juliette said the winds quickly dried up vegetation weakened by a prolonged drought and lowered humidity.
“It’s unusual to have fire this size here on the coast at the end of January,” she said. “The fact that we had a fire this size is of great concern.”
The cause of the fire was under investigation.
On Friday, in the south of the state, Harris was joined by Governor Gavin Newsom and Alex Padilla, the Democrat who replaced Harris in the US Senate, as they inspected wildfire damage from the sky, visited a federal fire station and outlined new spending aimed at reducing the risk of wildfires and dealing with their aftermath.
Harris also announced $600m in disaster relief funding for the US Forest Service in California.
The vice-president hailed the work of firefighters and credited collaboration between governments “unencumbered by politics”, an apparent reference to friction between heavily Democratic California and the Trump administration.
She said the government was “putting the resources where they are needed” in the battle against fires and the climate crisis.
A sprinkle of protesters joined onlookers along Harris’s route to the fire station, where at the entrance, a lone protester waved a US flag and shouted a derogatory slogan about Joe Biden.
On Friday, Harris’s office highlighted the provision of $1bn to create plans to help defend communities from wildfires, $650m for rehabilitation efforts for burned areas, and nearly $2.4bn for hazardous fuels management.
Earlier this week, the administration said it would expand efforts to fight wildfires by thinning forests around “hot spots” where nature and neighborhoods collide.
As climate change dries out the US west, officials say they have crafted a $50bn plan to more than double the use of controlled fires and logging to reduce tinder in at-risk areas. Only some of the work has funding.
A bipartisan group of a dozen California lawmakers has said it will push to add more than 1,100 professional wildland firefighters, in light of a dwindling pool of inmates to help fight the blazes.
The state has had historic wildfire seasons in recent years, including last year when for the first time two intense fires crossed the rocky bastion of the Sierra Nevada, one threatening tourist destinations along Lake Tahoe. Of the 10 largest wildfires in the state’s recorded history, eight were in the last five years.
Firefighters have worked as much as 40 days in a row, increasing burnout and mental health issues.