The Soberanes Fire continues to burn out of control southeast of Carmel Highlands in Big Sur. As of Monday morning, the fire has grown to 11,000 acres and is 5% contained. Six homes have been destroyed and the number of evacuation orders have grown.
Jennifer Marshalek lives on the top of a mountain just outside Carmel Highlands. Since Friday she and her husband have fed firefighters and introduced them to the rugged terrain near their home. Sunday morning they were given five minutes to evacuate.
“I grabbed my family pictures and said, Lord it’s yours. You know everything here is replaceable. You know, no one was hurt,” says Marshalek.
Later at the Red Cross evacuation center in Carmel Middle School, she got word that the fire jumped her house.
“And it burned everything around my house, but my house,” says Marshalek
The Soberanes Fire is burning in a remote and rugged area of Big Sur. Hundreds of firefighters from around the state are helping fight the blaze. Crews are hiking into the wilderness to attack it from the ground. And from the air, helicopters are scooping water from the ocean while planes drop retardant and foam.
“The aircraft does a great job of slowing the fire, but we need the boots on the ground to get in there to actually put the fire out, and that’s part of the difficulty we are having right now,” says John Clingingsmith, a CalFire Public Information Officer.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.