Active fire · Monterey coast

Big Sur is on fire.
Don’t come to Big Sur.

Highway 1 is the only road in or out. Every car that drives down to look is one more vehicle between an engine and the fire, on a road with nowhere to pull over. Give it to the crews and the people who live here.

Please stay out of the area

Checking for evacuation orders…

Local reporting

For what is actually happening on the ground, read BigSurKate. She has covered this coast for years and is consistently the fastest and most accurate source on Big Sur fires and Highway 1 — usually well ahead of the official feeds this page reads. This map shows you where; Kate tells you what it means.

For the weather driving this fire, watch Holt Hanley. He is a broadcast meteorologist — you may have seen him on KSBW — studying fire weather, and he streams detailed Timber Fire forecasts explaining the wind, heat and marine layer that decide where it goes next.

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reading satellite and CAL FIRE feeds

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Acres burned

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Contained

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Evacuation zones

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Perimeter

If you live here

Check your zone above — a warning means pack and be ready, an order means go now
Register for county alerts; this map follows them, it does not replace them
Leave early if you have animals, a trailer, or anyone slow to move
Keep Highway 1 clear for engines coming up from the south

If you’re visiting

Don’t. Not to look, not to photograph, not to “just drive past”
Cancel Big Sur plans and go north — Carmel, Pacific Grove and Monterey are open
Never stop on Highway 1 for a picture of smoke; there is nowhere to pull over
Drones ground the air attack. Flying one near a fire is a federal crime

Evacuation zones come from the CalOES statewide feed, the same source the evacuation apps read, and refresh every 3 minutes. They are the Sheriff's wording, shown as issued. The shaded fire area is where MODIS and VIIRS satellites detected heat, not an official fire line — the real edge will differ, and an unshaded road is not a safe one. Businesses and buildings along the coast road are drawn from OpenStreetMap so you can see what sits where relative to the burn. Buildings within 7 miles of the fire edge are picked out in blue purely so they are findable against everything else — that colour is not a damage report, a threat ranking or an evacuation boundary. A pin means a place exists there — it is not a claim that it is open, reachable, evacuated or undamaged, and we do not track that. Ring ahead before you rely on any of it. Acreage and containment come from CAL FIRE. Official perimeters, once flown, come from NIFC. For evacuation orders always follow CAL FIRE and Monterey County alerts, and read BigSurKate for the local picture and Holt Hanley for the fire weather.

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