The Big Sur Basin Wildfires: Update from the Land of Soot, Smoke and Red Sun.

We came home last night to discover soot all over the deck and a bright red sun sending mad, shimmery beams of crimson down below. As we watched this fiery freak show, the thick brown fog rose, swirled and swallowed the sinking sun in one smoky gulp. Very Sci-Fi Channel. Like Mars over the Monterey Peninsula.

So far the Basin Fires in neighboring Big Sur have burned 39,606 acres and 16 homes, with 1200 more being threatened. More than 700 firefighters, 6 helicopters, two air tankers and 46 engines are hard at work fighting the blaze. This part of the world –Carmel and Big Sur, especially, is very six degrees: we’re a small, close-knit community where everybody knows someone who is a firefighter or someone who lives on Partington Ridge or Palo Colorado.

Funny how the maps they show on the evening news always seem so distant — until the roads they’re pointing to are the roads that lead to your home.

Photographs courtesy of Katie Carroll