This road closes. Slides, fires, washouts — it has been cut somewhere for a large part of the last decade. A guide that only works when the road is whole is a guide that fails exactly when people need it most.
Highway 1 is closed for 8.9 miles, north of Gorda (Post Mile 10.5) to Kirk Creek Camp (Post Mile 19.0). The rest of the coast is open — and this road is the Place Name Guide Big Sur Drive. Free, narrated by Mabel Plaskett, works with no signal. Or simulate it with the demo drive from anywhere.
Highway 1 is closed for 8.89 miles, Post Mile 10.12 to 19.01. Two fires are burning on this coast: the Timber Fire at 25,407 acres and 27% contained (interagency record, 9 Sep 6:43pm PT), the Plaskett Fire at 29,942 acres and 73% contained (interagency record, 9 Sep 5:52pm PT). 7 evacuation zones are under an Order and 4 under a Warning (Sheriff via the Cal OES layer, zones last edited 3 Sep 1:31pm PT). The closest anything is mapped to the fire is Highway 1 between Willow Creek and Jade Cove, 0.0 miles from the Plaskett Fire's edge.
Below, in order: where the road is open and shut, then a map of each fire with its perimeter, the evacuation zones and the satellite’s heat detections. The northern fire comes first. Nothing on this page is an authority — for anything you would act on, ring the Monterey County Sheriff on 831-755-3700.
What has moved in the last 48 hours
Highway 1 closure south limit moved: north of Gorda (Post Mile 10.5)
Timber Fire 25,386 → 25,407 acres
Plaskett Fire 29,822 → 29,942 acres
Plaskett Fire containment 61% → 73%
Timber Fire new infrared perimeter flown
Timber Fire perimeter re-flown (IR Image Interpretation)
Times are when the agency stood behind the change, not when this page noticed it. This list is built by comparing every field on this page against the last build, so a change nobody thought to watch for still shows up.
The whole coast, and both fires on it
Both fires in one frame. The northern one, the Timber Fire, is above Big Sur village; the southern one, the Plaskett Fire, is above Gorda. Twenty-two miles of coast lie between their mapped edges and they have not joined. They are a single Highway 1 closure because between them they cut the same road, not because they are one fire — which is the thing this picture is here to make obvious before you look at either of them in detail.
Highway 1 closed — MM 10.12 to MM 19.01
burned, as last mapped
Plaskett Cabin
BigSurKate locked gate — inside the mapped perimeter
back-country camp, inside the mapped perimeter
back-country camp, outside it — none of them is somewhere to go
Los Burros mining site inside the mapped perimeter — position approximate, and nothing here is a way in
mining site outside it — the small diamonds are the other workings the federal record holds, unnamed to keep the map readable
satellite heat, most recent pass — each cell is one detection, about 375 m across
Four public sources on one picture: the federal interagency perimeter, the
Sheriff's evacuation zones through Cal OES, Caltrans' closed span of Highway 1, and the
satellite's most recent thermal detections. None of them publishes the other three. The
perimeter and the satellite are separate observations taken at different times, and each
carries its own stamp above — on this fire the newer of the two has more than once been
the satellite.
The two fires, and what they are near
The northern one, the Timber Fire, is above Big Sur village. The southern one, the Plaskett Fire, is above Gorda. They are twenty-two miles apart and have not joined; they are one road closure because between them they cut the same stretch of Highway 1. On each map the shaded outline is the last mapped perimeter, the orange cells are what the satellite last saw burning, and the coloured areas are evacuation zones. Each map carries the age of its own outline, which is the number to judge it by.
Highway 1 closed — MM 10.12 to MM 19.01
burned, as last mapped
back-country camp, inside the mapped perimeter
back-country camp, outside it — none of them is somewhere to go
Four public sources on one picture: the federal interagency perimeter, the
Sheriff's evacuation zones through Cal OES, Caltrans' closed span of Highway 1, and the
satellite's most recent thermal detections. None of them publishes the other three. The
perimeter and the satellite are separate observations taken at different times, and each
carries its own stamp above — on this fire the newer of the two has more than once been
the satellite.
Highway 1 closed — MM 10.12 to MM 19.01
burned, as last mapped
foot trail or old track — Silver Peak Wilderness, no vehicles, and nothing here is a way in
Plaskett Cabin
BigSurKate locked gate — inside the mapped perimeter
back-country camp, inside the mapped perimeter
back-country camp, outside it — none of them is somewhere to go
Los Burros mining site inside the mapped perimeter — position approximate, and nothing here is a way in
mining site outside it — the small diamonds are the other workings the federal record holds, unnamed to keep the map readable
satellite heat, most recent pass — each cell is one detection, about 375 m across
Four public sources on one picture: the federal interagency perimeter, the
Sheriff's evacuation zones through Cal OES, Caltrans' closed span of Highway 1, and the
satellite's most recent thermal detections. None of them publishes the other three. The
perimeter and the satellite are separate observations taken at different times, and each
carries its own stamp above — on this fire the newer of the two has more than once been
the satellite.
Where the road is open, and where it is not
The coast is cut. A hard closure took effect Thursday 27 August at 1:01pm between north of Gorda (Post Mile 10.5) and Kirk Creek Camp (Post Mile 19.0), so you cannot drive through. Nobody has confirmed it has lifted.
These three pieces are how people describe this coast, and a closure does not follow them. This one runs MM 10.12 to MM 19.01 — all of middle segment. Places are marked individually from their own post mile, so a piece marked open can still hold somewhere you cannot reach today.
Schematic. Coordinates marked 'repo' are the ones already carried in the route data; the rest are placed by hand to show the shape of the problem. Do not navigate by this.
Two separate fires are burning. Between them they shut fifty-six miles of Highway 1 as one closure from 28 August to 3 September; since then the closure is the Plaskett Fire's alone. It ran nineteen miles from the county line until 9 September, when Caltrans brought the south gate back up to north of Gorda at Post Mile 10.5, leaving just under nine miles shut between there and Kirk Creek Camp.
Holt Hanley posts a daily video walking the Plaskett Fire's map — where it moved overnight, what the infrared flights show, what the weather is about to do, and where the fire is likely to go — in plain language, from the same public data this page reads. This site carries the current record; his briefings teach you to see why it moves. Watch him, then read the maps here with better eyes.
Recommended by Bill Alderson, whose family ground this fire is burning over. An independent analyst, not an agency.
About five miles south-east of Big Sur, inside the 2016 Soberanes scar, spreading north-west toward Ventana Double Cone and the upper Carmel River basin, north up Lion Creek, and east into the forks of the Big Sur River.
Held the north end of the Highway 1 closure from 27 August to 3 September: backburning near Highway 1 and Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park was why the north limit existed, and on 28 August Caltrans moved it six miles north to Post Mile 56.1. On the morning of 3 September Caltrans reopened everything north of Pacific Valley, and the closure is now the Plaskett Fire's alone. The road past this fire — Point Sur, Big Sur village, Nepenthe, Esalen — is open from Carmel, under a one-way control at Rocky Creek Bridge for construction. The ground beside it is not clear: on the Cal OES layer read 8 September the zones from Point Sur to Esalen (MRY-F016 through F030-A) are all under Evacuation Warnings, last edited 6am on 3 September, and the state parks along it are closed.
More on this fire
Where: About five miles south-east of Big Sur, inside the 2016 Soberanes scar, spreading north-west toward Ventana Double Cone and the upper Carmel River basin, north up Lion Creek, and east into the forks of the Big Sur River.
Road: Held the north end of the Highway 1 closure from 27 August to 3 September: backburning near Highway 1 and Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park was why the north limit existed, and on 28 August Caltrans moved it six miles north to Post Mile 56.1. On the morning of 3 September Caltrans reopened everything north of Pacific Valley, and the closure is now the Plaskett Fire's alone. The road past this fire — Point Sur, Big Sur village, Nepenthe, Esalen — is open from Carmel, under a one-way control at Rocky Creek Bridge for construction. The ground beside it is not clear: on the Cal OES layer read 8 September the zones from Point Sur to Esalen (MRY-F016 through F030-A) are all under Evacuation Warnings, last edited 6am on 3 September, and the state parks along it are closed.
As of source: Size and containment from the WFIGS attribute record, modified 5:45pm PDT on 7 September 2026: attr_IncidentSize 25,380, attr_PercentContained 27. CAL FIRE's feed at 6:46pm and InciWeb at 9:17pm the same evening carry the same figures.
Separation note: The two fires have not joined. At their closest, the mapped perimeters are 22.6 miles apart — Timber above Big Sur village, Plaskett above Gorda. Between 28 August and 3 September they were published as one closure because between them they cut the same fifty-six miles of Highway 1; since 3 September only the Plaskett Fire closes road.
Location — note: The same federal record carries InitialLatitude 35.929352, -121.383821, which is twenty miles south and inside the Plaskett Fire's burn — not a plausible origin for a fire discovered on 8 August in the Ventana. The point geometry is used here and the initial-position fields are not.
Personnel source: WFIGS attribute record, attr_TotalIncidentPersonnel 1,600, modified 5:45pm on 7 September 2026 and read directly at 4:40am on 8 September. It was 2,334 on 30 August.
Perimeter — nearest note: Distances are the shortest line from the mapped perimeter to each point, measured to the edges of the outline rather than to its corners, from the coordinates recorded in distance_points. This outline was flown at 7:29am on 7 September and encloses 25,381 acres; distances recomputed against it 8 September 2026.
Distance: Roughly twenty miles north of the Plaskett Fire.
About that acreage: 25,381 acres by the outline flown at 7:29am on 7 September, 27% contained — up 158 acres and four points since 1 September. This fire has all but stopped moving. It held the north end of the closure until 3 September and was the larger of the two for a week; the Plaskett Fire passed it on 31 August and is now 4,400 acres bigger and, on the interagency record, twenty points more contained.
Straight-line distance from the mapped fire edge, as last published
Big Sur village0.27 mi
Nepenthe0.4 mi
Henry Miller Library0.48 mi
Post Ranch, MM 44.50.79 mi
Julia Pfeiffer Burns, MM 373.13 mi
Point Sur5.99 mi
Little Sur River Bridge (PM 56.1), the north gate until 3 September6.43 mi
The perimeter is a floor. It was mapped at 9:56am on 9 September and the fire has grown since, so every figure here is the furthest it could be, not the nearest.
Reported 2026-09-09 18:43
Since 26 Aug
Plaskett Fire
29,942 acres · 73% contained
Forest Road 23S10, east of Los Burros Road, Plaskett. The origin is 35.90356, -121.41472 — about a mile from the old Los Burros mining ground and the Plaskett family's Ocean View claim, two and a half miles from Gorda and three from Plaskett Creek.
This fire is why Highway 1 is closed at all. The federal outline current on 7 September maps the fire across Highway 1 itself — about three quarters of a mile of the road between Willow Creek and Jade Cove is inside the outline — and within a third of a mile of Sand Dollar Beach and half a mile of Plaskett Creek Campground. Caltrans' closure T1GA runs from Post Mile 0.0 at the San Luis Obispo County Line north to Post Mile 19.0 at Kirk Creek Camp. This fire holds both ends: Caltrans moved the south end to the county line at 1:33pm on 30 August, and after the north limit came back forty miles on 3 September the fire pushed it from Pacific Valley to Kirk Creek Camp on the morning of 4 September. Anyone who looked at this fire on the 26th, when it was 40 acres and two miles inland, would have a picture that is now wrong. Kirk Creek and the Nacimiento-Fergusson junction are inside evacuation warning zone MRY-F033, in force since 3:18pm on 27 August and still a Warning on the Cal OES layer read 8 September — the escape road east leaves from ground under a warning, and is itself closed.
Potential threat to life or property. Anyone needing extra time, and anyone with pets or livestock, should go now.
Issued by the Monterey County Sheriff's Office.
Follow the directions of public safety officials and the official channels. If this page and the Sheriff disagree, the Sheriff is right. Zone status can change in minutes and this page cannot.
How close it is: The mapped fire edge is 0.16 miles from the Plaskett Cabin — about 850 feet — unchanged from the previous flight. The fire nearly doubled without moving that edge: the ground it took is elsewhere.
What the satellite saw: Three passes crossed this fire on the night of 30-31 August, at 2:05am, 2:52am and 3:45am, and between them they recorded 301 detections, 32 megawatts at the hottest and 1,064 across the whole fire, five of them high-confidence. The third pass was the quietest of the three — 11 megawatts, 67 detections — but it changed none of the distances below, which all come from the 2:52am pass. That is the point of counting the night rather than the last look at it.
Night over night, which is the only fair comparison — a satellite sees more against cold ground and a fire burns hardest after noon:
night 28-29 Aug hottest 134 MW total 1,903 MW 10 high-confidence
night 29-30 Aug hottest 52 MW total 1,580 MW 0 high-confidence
night 30-31 Aug hottest 32 MW total 1,064 MW 5 high-confidence
Total radiative power is down about a third on the night before, and down on the night following the afternoon this fire nearly doubled. That is a real improvement and a smaller one than the first pass suggested.
CORRECTION. An earlier version of this page reported the night from the 2:05am pass alone: 89 detections, 24 megawatts, 427 in total, and the nearest heat 2.87 miles from the Plaskett Cabin. The 2:52am pass, forty-seven minutes later, found 145 detections and put heat 1.24 miles from the cabin. Every distance in the earlier version was too generous — the cabin by more than half, Gorda by a factor of three. The page had already said that one pass sees less than several, and then published one pass as the night anyway. Writing the caveat is not the same as applying it.
Forest Order 05-07-51-26-10: All National Forest System lands, roads and trails within the Monterey Ranger District Emergency Closure Area, for both the Timber and Plaskett Fires. Effective 2026-08-29, replacing 05-07-51-26-08, ending when the fires are officially declared out — no fixed date. Authorized personnel on official duty; private landowners and residents needing access, but only where no active evacuation order is in effect; holders of Forest Service permit FS-7700-48. The Forest Service has now closed ground in its own name on this fire. It is the agency with jurisdiction, and until this order it had issued nothing for the Plaskett Fire — its only live orders were the Timber Fire area closure and a roadside camping prohibition. Read the residents' exemption carefully: it applies only where no evacuation order is in force. The Plaskett Cabin is in MRY-F035, which has been under an order since 27 August, so the exemption does not reach it. As of 2:55pm on 29 August the Los Padres National Forest alerts index does not carry this order. It is published by the incident, not yet by the forest that issued it, so the number here comes from CAL FIRE's PIO rather than from the order itself. The exhibit map that defines the closure area — and would settle whether Nacimiento-Fergusson, Forest Road 22S01, falls inside it — has not been seen.
Gorda and Treebones: Gorda's order has been lifted. As of the Cal OES reading on 10 September 2026, Gorda is in zone MRY-F037-A under an Evacuation WARNING, not an Order; it had been under an Order since 1:07pm on 29 August. Treebones, half a mile north, is in the other half of the split zone, MRY-F037-B, and remains under an ORDER. A warning is not permission to drive there: the road to Gorda is still inside the Caltrans closure on the post mile.
More on this fire
Where: Forest Road 23S10, east of Los Burros Road, Plaskett. The origin is 35.90356, -121.41472 — about a mile from the old Los Burros mining ground and the Plaskett family's Ocean View claim, two and a half miles from Gorda and three from Plaskett Creek.
Road: This fire is why Highway 1 is closed at all. The federal outline current on 7 September maps the fire across Highway 1 itself — about three quarters of a mile of the road between Willow Creek and Jade Cove is inside the outline — and within a third of a mile of Sand Dollar Beach and half a mile of Plaskett Creek Campground. Caltrans' closure T1GA runs from Post Mile 0.0 at the San Luis Obispo County Line north to Post Mile 19.0 at Kirk Creek Camp. This fire holds both ends: Caltrans moved the south end to the county line at 1:33pm on 30 August, and after the north limit came back forty miles on 3 September the fire pushed it from Pacific Valley to Kirk Creek Camp on the morning of 4 September. Anyone who looked at this fire on the 26th, when it was 40 acres and two miles inland, would have a picture that is now wrong. Kirk Creek and the Nacimiento-Fergusson junction are inside evacuation warning zone MRY-F033, in force since 3:18pm on 27 August and still a Warning on the Cal OES layer read 8 September — the escape road east leaves from ground under a warning, and is itself closed.
As of source: Size and containment from the WFIGS attribute record modified 6:01pm PDT on 7 September 2026 — 29,862 acres and 47% — with the geometry current at 7:36pm enclosing 29,800. CAL FIRE's feed carried the same 29,862 and 47% at 6:53pm. InciWeb's 10:50pm narrative gives 29,862 acres and 37% contained: ten points below the other two. The figure published here is the interagency record's, and containment on this page should be read as between 37 and 47 per cent until the sources agree.
Acres source: WFIGS attribute record modified 6:01pm PDT 7 September: attr_IncidentSize 29,862, attr_PercentContained 47. Geometry current 7:36pm PDT 7 September from a flight at 1:17pm on 6 September, poly_GISAcres 29,800. CAL FIRE's feed at 6:53pm: 29,862 acres, 47%. InciWeb at 10:50pm: 29,862 acres, 37%.
Structures note: The structures nearest this edge are not new. Cabins on Plaskett Ridge have stood there for decades — the oldest for more than a century. No agency has published a structure count for this fire, threatened or lost, and this page will not guess at one.
Origin note: The fire did not start near the coast. It started high on Plaskett Ridge, on Forest Road 23S10 east of Los Burros Road at 35.90356, -121.41472, and worked downhill to the west. The cabin is 2.8 miles west of that start point; the fire has covered most of that ground in two days. These are distances from where it began, not from where its edge is now — those are separate numbers and the second set is the one that matters for deciding anything.
Freshest observation: Every figure on this page comes from a source that publishes on its own schedule, and the table beneath the agency list gives the time each one was last looked at, with its age worked out on your clock rather than at build time. The overnight pattern is consistent on both these fires: the agencies post through the afternoon and evening, stop, and start again after dawn. The satellite is no help in that gap — its overnight passes have twice taken until well after sunrise to appear. So a run of unchanging numbers between about 9pm and 6am means nobody is publishing. It is not evidence that a fire has stopped, and this page will not let it read as though it were.
Personnel source: WFIGS attribute record, attr_TotalIncidentPersonnel 2,177, modified 6:01pm on 7 September 2026 and read directly at 4:40am on 8 September. It was 897 on 30 August.
When this ground last burned — headline: A fifth of this fire is running on fuel that has not burned since 1970.
When this ground last burned — note: Sampling the ground inside the perimeter and asking, for each point, when it last burned. IMPORTANT: these percentages were computed against the 30 August outline of 15,478 acres. The fire has since grown to 26,734 and the shape changed completely, so the proportions below describe the older, smaller footprint and have not been recomputed. The place names and their last-burn dates are unaffected.
2000 PLASKETT 2 35.7% of the burn 26 years ago
1996 WILD 30.9% 30 years ago
1970 BUCKEYE 21.0% 56 years ago
1985 unnamed 4.6% 41 years ago
1930 and earlier 3.4% 96 years and more
never mapped 4.3%
So this is not one landscape with one age. Two thirds of it burned within the last thirty years. But 21% of it — better than three thousand acres — last burned in the Buckeye Fire of September 1970, the fire that took what was left of the miners' cabins at Manchester. Add the ground with no mapped fire at all and 29% of this burn is carrying half a century or more of fuel.
That is the honest version of a thing people say about this coast. Fifty-six years is a real number and it belongs to a fifth of this fire, not to all of it.
When this ground last burned — place note: Two of those are worth stopping on. The McKern Road junction, up on the ridge, last burned in the Buckeye Fire of 1970 and had gone fifty-six years — which is exactly the country the old drive-up camp with the spring was in, remembered from about 1967, three years before that fire.
And the ground under the Plaskett Cabin carries no mapped fire at all, back to 1912 when the record starts. Nor does Gorda. The fire came within 850 feet of a place with no history of burning in anything anybody has mapped.
Perimeter — nearest note: Distances are the shortest line from the mapped perimeter to each point, measured to the edges of the outline rather than to its corners, from the coordinates recorded in distance_points. This outline was flown at 1:17pm on 6 September and encloses 29,800 acres. It still maps the fire ACROSS Highway 1 between Willow Creek and Jade Cove; Pacific Valley stands 0.76 miles from the line and Sand Dollar Beach 0.26. Every figure below was recomputed against this outline on 8 September 2026.
Perimeter — restamped — what: This has now happened on every outline this fire has published. The 30 August outline was advanced from 3:50pm to 7:00pm while republishing byte-identical geometry — same SHA-256, same 17 rings, same 7,238 vertices, same 15,478 acres — three times over. The 31 August outline that replaced it arrives the same way: flown at 9:48am, stamped poly_DateCurrent 4:48pm, seven hours later. The map here reports the flight time, never the stamp, because the age of an outline is the number a reader is asked to judge it by and a fresh date on an old shape is the one lie that would matter.
Evacuation — changed: Read 10 September 2026 from the Cal OES aggregation layer, point by point over every place this guide publishes. Zone F037 has been SPLIT since the 8 September reading: Treebones is now in F037-B, still under an Evacuation ORDER, while Gorda is in F037-A, downgraded to a WARNING. Orders stand over F034 (Mill Creek), F035 (Sand Dollar, Plaskett Creek), F036 (Willow Creek) and F037-B (Treebones). Warnings stand over F024, F026, F027-A and B, F030-A, F033 (Lucia, Limekiln, Kirk Creek) and F037-A (Gorda, Salmon Creek). No zone covers Ragged Point or anything south of it.
Evacuation — gorda note: As read on 28 August 2026, Gorda fell in none of the zones under an order or a warning; Treebones, half a mile north, was inside the MRY-F037 warning. The zone boundary and Caltrans' then-south gate at Post Mile 10.2 were in the same place, which is very likely why the gate was there. Superseded twice since: at 1:07pm on 29 August MRY-F037 went to an Evacuation Order covering Gorda and Treebones both, and at 1:33pm on 30 August Caltrans moved the gate to the county line. Gorda is now under an order and about ten miles inside the closure.
Evacuation — order means: Immediate threat to life. A lawful order to LEAVE NOW; the area is lawfully closed to public access.
Evacuation — warning means: Potential threat to life or property. Anyone needing extra time, and anyone with pets or livestock, should go now.
Evacuation — closing: Follow the directions of public safety officials and the official channels. If this page and the Sheriff disagree, the Sheriff is right. Zone status can change in minutes and this page cannot.
Evacuation — why not the county page: The county's own emergency page carries the same zone lists as free text and contradicts itself. Read on 28 August 2026 (page stamped 27 August 5:40pm), eleven zones appear under two different statuses at once — MRY-D082, D089, D090, D091, F022, F023-A and F025 are listed as BOTH ordered and warned; F021-B, F024, F026 and F027-A as both warned and shelter-in-place. The cause is visible in the page: new decisions are appended as 'NEW---8/27' blocks without the superseded entries being removed, so an upgraded zone sits in both lists. Two zone identifiers are also malformed — 'MRY-F-36' for MRY-F036, and 'MTY-F031-A' for MRY-F031-A. The Cal OES layer resolves every one of the eleven unambiguously, which is why this page takes its zone status from the layer and not from the prose. Do not 'correct' this data against the county page.
Evacuation — county wide note: The Cal OES layer carried 41 Monterey zones at 12:45pm on 28 August and 46 by 1:00pm. Five were added in that window — F014, F016, F017, G015 and G016 — and F015-A, F016, F017, F020 and G016 are Orders while F018 and F019 moved to Shelter In Place. Those are the Timber Fire's zones north of here, not this fire's, but they show the direction of travel.
Evacuation — reference points — method: Our own reference points tested against the zone polygons read from the Cal OES layer at 4:35am on 8 September 2026. Point-in-polygon, not a landmark reading.
Forest order — exceptions: The order exempts Pfeiffer Beach and Sycamore Canyon Road from the forest closure. That is the Forest Service declining to close two of its own places; it says nothing about Highway 1, which is closed by Caltrans from the county line to Kirk Creek Camp, or about any evacuation order.
Satellite — where the heat is — note: Taking both passes of the night together, the nearest detection to each place: Gorda 0.79 miles, Plaskett Cabin 1.24, Pacific Valley 1.50, Highway 1 at Plaskett Creek 1.63, Kirk Creek 1.92.
The hottest cells, at 32 megawatts, sit around 35.971,-121.445 — north of Pacific Valley toward Kirk Creek — and nothing anywhere on the fire read above 32 all night.
The cabin figure has moved outward over a day and a half, but not as far as a single pass suggested: 0.05 miles on the night of the 29th, 0.48 the following night, 0.62 at four that morning, 0.97 and 1.20 through the afternoon of the 30th, and 1.24 for the night of the 30th-31st taken whole. Gorda at 0.79 miles is now the nearest of the named places to any heat.
A satellite sees heat, not a fire edge. A cell reading nothing is a cell where nothing was hot enough at the moment the satellite looked, which is not the same as out and is not the same as safe.
Structures: CAL FIRE's feed carries no structure count for this fire — the StructuresThreatened field is empty. Earlier reporting on 26 August described about eight structures under potential threat along Los Burros Road, with a CAL FIRE strike team on structure defence and the Sheriff running the evacuations. Nobody has published a confirmed figure since.
Response: Command passed to California Interagency Incident Management Team 7 on 1 September, per CAL FIRE's incident page. Crews are holding the northern edge with firing operations along the Slick Rock road system, aviation in support.
Whose fire it is: US Forest Service — Los Padres National Forest, unified command. Not a CAL FIRE incident, though CAL FIRE crews are working it and CAL FIRE publishes the figures.
Command: California Interagency Incident Management Team 7. Type 1 incident. (Command passed from Team 3 on 1 September.)
Cause: Under investigation.
About that acreage: 29,800 acres by the mapped outline, 47% contained on the interagency record — the evening figures of 7 September. Containment has moved from 1% to 47% since 2 September, the largest change on this fire since it nearly doubled on 1 September; InciWeb's own update the same night gives 37%. The outline was last flown at 1:17pm on 6 September and put Pacific Valley 0.76 miles from the mapped line.
Straight-line distance from the mapped fire edge, as last published
Highway 1 between Willow Creek and Jade Cove0.0 mi
Plaskett Cabin0.16 mi
Sand Dollar Beach0.26 mi
Highway 1 at Plaskett Creek0.32 mi
Plaskett Creek Campground0.46 mi
Jade Cove0.47 mi
Pacific Valley0.76 mi
Gorda1.17 mi
Kirk Creek and the Nacimiento-Fergusson turning2.48 mi
The perimeter is a floor. It was mapped at 6:30pm on 7 September and the fire has grown since, so every figure here is the furthest it could be, not the nearest.
Straight-line distance from where it started
Plaskett Cabin2.8 mi
Los Burros mining ground0.9 mi
Sand Dollar Beach3.2 mi
Plaskett Creek Campground3.2 mi
Gorda2.6 mi
Willow Creek2.2 mi
Pacific Valley3.9 mi
Kirk Creek and the Nacimiento-Fergusson turning7.4 mi
Where it began, not where it is now. Distance is not safety — a canyon and a wind decide that, not a number. The zone map is what tells you to go.
Reported 2026-09-09 17:52
Zones are printed above only where we have the
Sheriff's own notice, with the time it was issued. They change through
the day, and which zone a particular place sits in is a question only the
map answers.
alertmry.org →
·
County
emergency →
None of these is somewhere to go. Every one of them is inside the Highway 1 closure or behind it, most are inside an evacuation order, and the ones on the ridge are reached by roads the Forest Service has shut. They are drawn because people ask what is burning, and because a camp is the kind of place that gets left off a fire map and then turns out to have had somebody in it.
Five camps are inside a mapped perimeter. Four are in the Plaskett Fire: Basket Spring, Bane Spring and Miguel Camp, which were inside on the 30 August outline, and Alder Creek Camp, which stood about a hundred feet outside that outline and is inside the one flown on 6 September — it sits less than half a mile from the Manchester townsite, at the head of Alder Creek. The fifth is Cienega Camp, inside the Timber Fire on the Tassajara side.
On the Plaskett side the nearest camps outside the line are Apple Camp at 0.51 miles, Villa Creek at 0.91, Cruickshank at 1.08 — it carries the name of the man who struck the Last Chance on the ridge above it in 1887 — Lower Cruikshank at 1.17, Silver Camp at 1.23, Alms Camp at 1.31 and Chalk Peak at 1.66. On the Timber side Cold Spring Camp is 0.22 miles off the edge and Bear Basin 1.10, both unchanged since 30 August, which is the story of that fire.
These distances are to outlines flown on 6 and 7 September. They are floors, not clearances. The fire has moved since every flight it has been given.
There was a camp on top of Plaskett Ridge Road, and it is on no map we can find.
A drive-up camp for a single vehicle or a tent, right on the road at the top of Plaskett Ridge Road, with a spring nearby. Bill stayed there on his own at about twelve years old, around 1967. He does not remember the name — and no modern map carries one; nothing is mapped anywhere along Plaskett Ridge Road.
The likeliest reason is the date. In September 1970 the Buckeye Fire ran through most of the Los Burros country and destroyed nearly all the cabins and camps still standing; the Forest Service cleared what was left. A camp that burned in 1970 and was never rebuilt would have dropped off the maps between one edition and the next.
If you camped on that ridge before 1970 and remember what it was called, we would like to know. A 1950s or 60s USGS quad of Cape San Martin or Villa Creek would very likely settle it.
OpenStreetMap, queried 30 August 2026 for camp sites between 35.80 and 36.10 north and -121.60 and -121.20 west. Positions are OSM's; most of these are Forest Service trail camps with a fire ring and a flat spot and nothing else.
The Los Burros mining district
This fire started on Forest Road 23S10 east of Los Burros Road and has burned west and south across the ground the district occupied. The sites below are here for perspective, not for navigation: none of them is a service, a shelter or a place to go, and most of them are nothing on the ground now but a level bench and a scatter of stone.
This ground has burned twice before within living record. Fire destroyed the town of Manchester in late 1890, five years before the district was abandoned. The Buckeye Fire of September 1970 burned through most of the Los Burros country and took nearly all the miners' cabins that were still standing. The Plaskett Fire is the third.
Measured against the infrared perimeter flown at 3:50pm on 30 August 2026: the Manchester townsite is 0.03 miles from the fire's mapped edge — about a hundred and sixty feet — and the district's mines, as the archive places them, fall inside it. The four hottest satellite cells of the afternoon, at 329 megawatts, sat about nine tenths of a mile from the townsite. Given the half-mile slack on most of these positions, treat that as the district burning rather than as a claim about any one mine.
Manchester — A gold town from about 1875 to 1895. Three hundred and fifty people at its height, a hundred still there in 1889. Burned in 1890. Nothing is left but stamp-mill remnants and an E Clampus Vitus marker on Willow Creek Road.
Last Chance Mine — The first major strike of the Los Burros gold rush, at the head of Alder Creek. Also recorded as the Buclimo.
Ocean View Quartz Mine — A Plaskett family claim.
McKern Road junction — Signed off South Coast Ridge Road, gated — the board reads LOCKED GATE 2 and points to McKERN ROAD. Position measured: 35.96190, -121.42696, read off the GPS of a photograph taken at the sign on 1 September 2026. This REPLACES a position solved from a photograph by eye, which sat 1.10 miles south-east of the real one and put the junction 0.81 miles inside the fire perimeter when it is in fact just outside it.
McKern Road, found from the numbers painted on a sign.
The photograph carried no GPS — the location data had been stripped before it reached us. But the brown sign beside it is a survey marker if you read it as one:
Two distances along one road is two constraints on one unknown. Walking South Coast Ridge Road's own geometry seven miles south from where it leaves Nacimiento-Fergusson lands at 35.949, -121.415. The straight line from there to Prewitt Ridge Road is 2.12 miles, and the sign says 2. Two independent numbers agreeing to a tenth of a mile is a fix.
Call it half a mile of slack either way. Forest Service mileages are rounded to the whole mile, so a position quoted to five decimals off a sign that says '7' would be a precision the evidence does not carry.
Two things follow. That point is 0.26 miles INSIDE the Plaskett Fire's mapped perimeter. And it is 0.36 miles from the top of Plaskett Ridge Road — the same ground as the drive-up camp with the spring, recorded elsewhere on this page as remembered from about 1967 and missing from every modern map.
The McKern place is in the family archive as a record with no coordinates, which is why it has never been drawn. This does not locate the place; it locates the road that carries its name, which is the first fixed point anybody has put on it. The sign also reads LOCKED GATE, and nothing here should be read as access.
Read the positions as approximate. Manchester is recorded to five decimal places and is trustworthy to a few hundred feet. Most of the mines are held in the archive to two decimal places, which is about half a mile of slack — enough that whether a given claim falls inside or outside a fire perimeter cannot be settled from these numbers. What can be said is that the district as a whole is inside it.
Coordinates from the Plaskett family archive at plaskett.family, which is Bill Alderson's own research; Manchester's position independently matched against Wikipedia's 35.88111, -121.39250 to five decimal places.
The Plasketts have been on this coast since 1869, and the road being cut is not news to anybody in the family — it is most of the last decade. This is the same road-status page Place Name Guide publishes, kept here because people planning a visit to the south coast tend to start on this site.
Highway 1 is closed between north of Gorda (Post Mile 10.5) and Kirk Creek Camp (Post Mile 19.0). The closure took effect Thursday 27 August at 1:01pm and nobody has confirmed it has lifted.
Cause: Fire. Caltrans logs the closure type as 'Full' and the reason as 'Fire'. Since 3 September only the Plaskett Fire, inland of Gorda and mapped across Highway 1 at Willow Creek, bears on it; the Timber Fire's backburning near Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park held a north limit at MM 56.1 from 28 August until Caltrans gave that road back on 3 September. The closure runs from north of Gorda (Post Mile 10.5)
to Kirk Creek Camp (Post Mile 19.0). Reopening: No end has been given. Caltrans records this closure's end as indefinite in its own system, which is the agency saying it does not know when the road comes back — not a long estimate, and not a date anybody should plan against.
Reference: Caltrans’ own Lane Closure System, read 11 September 2026 at 2:00am PT, record stamped 11 September at 1:53am: closure T1GA, North of Gorda at Postmile 10.5, Post Mile 10.12 to Kirk Creek Camp, Post Mile 19.01, fire, all lanes, no end given. Caltrans’ public road-conditions feed, stamped Friday, September 11th, 2026 at 02:00 AM, agrees. That is what stands until Caltrans changes it; if this time is old, so is the answer.
Is Highway 1 open?
PARTIALLY
Highway 1 is cut mid-coast. Both ends are open.
Announced for gate moved back to MM 19.0 on 4 SeptemberConfirmed by CaltransREVISED 4 September: Caltrans has taken three miles back. The gate now stands at Kirk Creek Camp (MM 19.0). Point Sur, Big Sur village, Nepenthe, Julia Pfeiffer Burns, Lucia and Limekiln remain in reach from Carmel — but Pacific Valley and the Nacimiento-Fergusson junction are back inside the closure.The closure grew, and a growing closure is published here at once — the asymmetry runs one way. Evacuation orders still cover the ground behind the gate.South of Kirk Creek Camp — Pacific Valley, Sand Dollar, Plaskett Creek, Gorda, Treebones — is closed for Plaskett Fire operations. Use US 101 to get around.Caltrans' Lane Closure System record, read directly 4 September 2026 morning.
Drive it — free
Take my grandmother along
Most of this road came back on 3 September, and it happens to be the family's old drive. Our free guide plays Mabel Plaskett's stories through your phone as you reach each place — 38 stops, Carmel to San Simeon, either direction, and it works with no signal once downloaded. The closed miles at the south end join the drive whenever Caltrans opens the gate.
Download while you have signal. Far from the coast, the same link offers a demo drive from wherever you are.
Checked automatically—no change found
Reviewed by a person2026-09-10
Those are two different things. The automatic check runs at
08:00 and 20:00 Central and can only ever add caution — it is not
permitted to reopen a road or to refresh the review date. Only a person can do
that, which is why the second date moves more slowly than the first.
Restrictions in force right now
Straight from Caltrans, not summarised
closure
Cause: wildfire
Is closed to from 10.5 mi north to 19 mi north of the San Luis Obispo/Monterey Co Line /at Kirk Creek Camp/ - Due to a wildfire - Motorists are advised to use an alternate route
one-way control
In force 24 hours a day · In force until 6:00 AM on 11/30/26 · Cause: construction
1-way controlled traffic 15.7 mi south of Monterey /at Rocky Creek Bridge/ (Monterey Co) 24 hrs a day 7 days a week thru 0600 hrs on 11/30/26 - Due to construction
If the closure stops you, where can you go?
Up to about 1,000 vehicles a day cannot get through. What you can do depends on which way you are
travelling, and the two are not the same. The crossing over the range leaves the coast south of the closure, so it is behind you if you are heading north and beyond your reach if you are heading south.
Heading south, from Carmel or Monterey
You are stopped at north of Gorda (Post Mile 10.5)
Turn around
Go back the way you came. For most people this is the right answer: the coast is worth driving twice and the alternatives are long.
Nacimiento-Fergusson Road Not available
Not reachable from this side. It leaves the coast at Highway 1 at Kirk Creek Bridge, on the far side of the closure.
Go around inland on US 101
Back to Carmel, then CA-68 to Salinas, US 101 south to Paso Robles, then CA-46 west to the coast. It is a long way round — hours, not minutes — and none of it is the coast. Check times before you commit.
Heading north, from San Simeon or Cambria
You are stopped at Kirk Creek Camp (Post Mile 19.0)
Nacimiento-Fergusson Road Not available
Currently closed. Do not plan on it.
Turn around
Go back the way you came. For most people this is the right answer: the coast is worth driving twice and the alternatives are long.
Go around inland on US 101
Back to Paso Robles, then US 101 north to Salinas, then CA-68 to Monterey. It is a long way round — hours, not minutes — and none of it is the coast. Check times before you commit.
The vehicle count is a ceiling worked out from Caltrans annual averages on either side of the closure, not a measurement of the closure itself. Real numbers swing hard with the season and the day of the week. Nothing here is a promise that a road is open — check the authorities before you set out.
How busy this road is
Caltrans traffic census · vehicles per day
Right nowBUSIER THAN USUAL
Late September is peak season on this coast, so expect traffic about 17% above the annual average. Caltrans has no permanent counter on Big Sur, so this is the season against the annual figures below — not a live measurement.
At the county line the coast road carries about
1,000 vehicles a day. By Garrapata Creek, at the northern end of
the coast, it is 5,800 — roughly 6 times
as many. Big Sur is a quiet road that gets busier the closer it comes to
Carmel, which is why a closure mid-coast strands very few people and
inconveniences a great many.
PM 0San Luis Obispo/Monterey County Line1,000
PM 35Anderson Canyon Bridge1,700
PM 47Big Sur River Bridge3,500
PM 63Big Sur, Garrapata Creek Bridge5,800
Read these carefully. Caltrans BACK and AHEAD refer to the segment behind and ahead of the count point, not to travel direction. Every figure is a two-way total and an annual average; summer weekends on the south coast run well above it. No public northbound/southbound split exists for this road.
Every closure since 2017, counted
How much of each
year this road was cut, what caused it, and how long it lasted.
Checked automatically at 08:00 and 20:00Caltrans reported as of Friday, September 11th, 2026 at 02:00 AM
This page has not been checked recently. A scheduled check has been missed, so what
follows may be out of date. Do not act on it — call Caltrans on 1-800-427-7623 or open
QuickMap before you drive.
What Caltrans is reporting for this stretch, in their words
Is closed to from 10.5 mi north to 19 mi north of the San Luis Obispo/Monterey Co Line /at Kirk Creek Camp/ - Due to a wildfire - Motorists are advised to use an alternate route
Also in effect
1-way controlled traffic 15.7 mi south of Monterey /at Rocky Creek Bridge/ (Monterey Co) 24 hrs a day 7 days a week thru 0600 hrs on 11/30/26 - Due to construction
Before you come
This coast has a temperament. Match it.
Be patient when it goes wrong, and it will. Roads close. Slides come down, fires start, bridges wash out, and the coast gets cut in half with no notice and no timeline. When that happens, the person in front of you at the counter has been living with it for years — it is their commute, their business, sometimes their home. They did not cause it and they cannot fix it. Getting angry at them about a road is the worst thing a visitor can do here, and it is remembered.
These are acts of God, and nobody here is in charge of them. The fire, the slide, the flood, the fog that hides the view you drove six hours for — none of it is anybody's fault, and none of it takes bookings. The coast does what it does. The people who have stayed here have made peace with that, and the visitors who enjoy it most are the ones who arrive already holding their plans loosely.
Carmel to the closure gate at Kirk Creek Camp (MM 19.0)
Reached from Carmel — US-101 to Salinas, then CA-68 over to Monterey
Point Lobos
Bixby Bridge
Point Sur Light
Big Sur village
Pfeiffer Big Sur
Post Ranch and Ventana
Nepenthe
Henry Miller Memorial Library
Deetjen's
Partington Cove
Julia Pfeiffer Burns and McWay Falls
Lucia
Limekiln
Middle segment
Closed
Kirk Creek Camp (MM 19.0) south to the gate north of Gorda (MM 10.5) -- just under nine miles
No way in while it is shut. Closed Thursday 27 August at 1:01pm: north of Gorda (Post Mile 10.5) to Kirk Creek Camp (Post Mile 19.0).
Pacific Valleyinside the closure
Kirk Creekinside the closure
Plaskett Creekinside the closure
Sand Dollar Beachinside the closure
Treebonesinside the closure
Gordainside the closure
South segment
Open
Ragged Point, San Simeon and south — outside Monterey County altogether
Reached from San Simeon — US-101 at Paso Robles, then CA-46 west to the coast
Ragged Pointopen — outside the closure
San Simeonopen — outside the closure
Two ways onto the coast
Normally three: two ends and a middle. King City is no use while this closure stands, because it lands inside it.
Heading south, from Carmel or Monterey
You are stopped at north of Gorda (Post Mile 10.5)
Turn around
Go back the way you came. For most people this is the right answer: the coast is worth driving twice and the alternatives are long.
Nacimiento-Fergusson Road Not available
Not reachable from this side. It leaves the coast at Highway 1 at Kirk Creek Bridge, on the far side of the closure.
Go around inland on US 101
Back to Carmel, then CA-68 to Salinas, US 101 south to Paso Robles, then CA-46 west to the coast. It is a long way round — hours, not minutes — and none of it is the coast. Check times before you commit.
Heading north, from San Simeon or Cambria
You are stopped at Kirk Creek Camp (Post Mile 19.0)
Nacimiento-Fergusson Road Not available
Currently closed. Do not plan on it.
Turn around
Go back the way you came. For most people this is the right answer: the coast is worth driving twice and the alternatives are long.
Go around inland on US 101
Back to Paso Robles, then US 101 north to Salinas, then CA-68 to Monterey. It is a long way round — hours, not minutes — and none of it is the coast. Check times before you commit.
Nacimiento-Fergusson Road
The only road across the Santa Lucia Range between Monterey and Cambria.
24.5 micoast to Jolon
2,780′summit
7.6%average grade
11.5%steepest
West end at Highway 1 at Kirk Creek Bridge, east end at Mission Road at Jolon.
Reopened 15 November 2024, after nearly four years closed by the Dolan Fire.
Closed. CLOSED, on the word of three authorities. Fort Hunter Liggett — the US Army garrison the eastern half of this road crosses — was asked directly by telephone on 8 September 2026 and said the road is closed to the public as of that call, as it had said on 28 August. Monterey County Public Works' road-closure layer carries it closed for its entire length since 30 August, until further notice. Los Padres Forest Order 05-07-51-26-10 of 29 August closes it with the fire area. Separately, the Monterey County Sheriff's Evacuation ORDER for zones MRY-F034 and MRY-G016, in force since 12:59pm on 28 August and still in force on the Cal OES layer read 8 September, covers the road from just east of Kirk Creek inland toward the Fort Hunter Liggett boundary; an evacuation order closes an area to public access as a matter of law under Penal Code § 409.5. None of them states limits or an end date for the road itself, so this page does not claim to know where the closure begins or when it lifts. The Army publishes its closure nowhere a person without a Facebook account can read; the county's layer and the Sheriff's zones are published as polygons anyone can read.
Where it meets the coast — and where you get out
Highway 1 at Kirk Creek Bridge
It is the one place you can enter or leave this coast in the middle instead of at an end. That mattered while Highway 1 was shut for fifty-six miles — and as of 28 August 2026 it is shut too: Fort Hunter Liggett says Nacimiento-Fergusson is closed. The junction sits at Kirk Creek, MM 21, inside the Highway 1 closure, so it is no way IN for a visitor; and with the crossing closed it is no longer a way OUT either. Anyone inside who needs to leave should call the Monterey County Sheriff rather than drive to this junction.
↑ North
Limekiln, New Camaldoli Hermitage, Lucia
as far as Carmel — the road north of the junction is open; it is the crossing east that is shut
↓ South
Mill Creek, Pacific Valley, Sand Dollar, Plaskett Creek, Gorda, Treebones
as far as the closure gate north of Gorda, MM 10.5 -- you cannot reach Gorda, Ragged Point or San Simeon this way. The gate is shut; the road beyond it is reached from the south, not through here.
→ East
Nacimiento-Fergusson over the summit to Jolon, then King City or Bradley
as far as closed — Fort Hunter Liggett says so, 28 August 2026
And it puts you back on US-101 at either end — Jolon is a fork, not a
dead end.
Left (north-east) at JolonJolon Road to King CityUS-101 north, for Salinas, Monterey and the Bay
Right (south-east) at Jolonthrough Lockwood and BradleyUS-101 south at Paso Robles, for the Central Valley and Los Angeles
Who can close this road
Four separate bodies can shut this road and they do not publish in the same place, in the same form, or on the same clock. Asking 'is it open' of any one of them answers only their own segment. Checked 28 August 2026.
US Forest Service — Los Padres National Forestnot machine-readable
Owns the western portion. The Forest Service designates it Forest Road 22S01 and issues orders governing it — its roadside camping prohibition names "Nacimiento-Fergusson Road (Forest Road No. 22S01), from its intersection with State Highway 1 then east for 12 miles", effective 6 September 2025 to 5 September 2027. A body that numbers a road and regulates conduct on it by order is the body that can close it.
Says so: Forest orders, published as PDFs on the forest alerts index.
No forest order in force names 22S01 as prohibited. Order 05-07-51-26-08 (Timber Fire, effective 16 August 2026) names it only in the boundary description. No order has been issued for the Plaskett Fire.
Monterey County Public Worksmachine-readable
Maintains and manages the road under contract with the Forest Service — the equipment and the staff are the county's. In practice this is the body that closes it for storm damage and washouts.
Says so: The Road Closures & Traffic Advisory layer, a public ArcGIS feature service that needs no key, and a road-conditions web page that returns 403 to automated clients.
Nacimiento-Fergusson IS on the layer as of 8 September 2026: 'Entire road 08-30-26 Until further notice — Timber Fire — Emergency'. On 28 August it was not, while the Army had already said the road was closed — a maintained, current layer that missed a closed mountain crossing during a fire, which reads as authoritative. It caught up on 30 August.
Fort Hunter Liggett — US Armynot machine-readable
The eastern descent crosses the installation, and the Army closes it in its own name. Not inferred from ownership — it is the documented, repeated practice of the garrison, announced by its own Public Affairs Office and enforced on the ground by Military Police.
Says so: Nowhere readable. The garrison's home page says nothing of this and refers callers to Caltrans for a road Caltrans does not own. Its Wildfire Information page was last modified 3 September 2025, still describes the 2020 Dolan and Coleman fires, and says updates will be provided via Facebook. The Facebook page requires a login. The answer exists and is given freely on the telephone; it is published in no form anyone can check. Asked again by telephone on 8 September 2026: closed to the public.
CLOSED — stated by the garrison on the telephone, 8 September 2026, without limits, order number or end date; the same answer it gave on 28 August. This is the authority most likely to shut the road with no warning and the least likely to publish it anywhere a machine, or a person without a Facebook account, can read.
831-386-2513
Monterey County Sheriffmachine-readable
An evacuation order closes an area to public access as a matter of law, whatever any road notice says. This overrides everything above.
Says so: The Cal OES California Evacuation Aggregation Layer, which carries zone polygons and live status.
Zone MRY-F033, which contains the Kirk Creek junction, has been under an evacuation WARNING since 3:18pm on 27 August. A warning, not an order.
Caltrans — not an authority here
Nacimiento-Fergusson is not a state highway, and Caltrans' remit is the state highway system and nothing else. Streets and Highways Code § 90: "The department shall have full possession and control of all state highways and all property and rights in property acquired for state highway purposes." That sentence is the entirety of what Caltrans possesses and controls. The state highway routes are the ones the Legislature enumerates in the Streets and Highways Code; this road is not among them and carries no route number. It is a county highway maintained by Monterey County — under § 941 a road is a county highway once the board of supervisors accepts it into the county road system, and boards "shall, by proper order, cause those highways which are necessary to public convenience to be established, recorded, constructed, and maintained". Caltrans therefore has neither possession nor control of this road.
Fort Hunter Liggett's own public page refers callers to Caltrans for this road. One of the four closing authorities is pointing the public at an agency that neither owns it, controls it, nor carries it in any of its data. That is a broken referral, not a source — and it sends people to a dead end during a fire.
Before you commit to it
Steep, narrow and winding — seven miles of it at eight to ten per cent. Not a road for a big rig or a towed trailer.
It crosses Fort Hunter Liggett, an active Army post. Carry your vehicle registration and proof of insurance.
It closes on occasion for artillery and tank exercises. That is a real closure, not a suggestion. Be ready to turn around and be ready to wait — hours is possible. They plan well and usually tell you the scoop, but an emergency changes that. Carry fuel, food and an alternative: back out to 101 and around to whichever end of the coast you wanted.
No fuel, no food and no signal for the whole crossing.
The coastal end, at the bridge. The campground sits on the bluff right here, and this is where you rejoin Highway 1.
The summit
2,780 feet, about seven miles up from the ocean. On a clear day you see the whole south coast behind you at once.
Fort Hunter Liggett
An active Army installation, and the reason to have your paperwork in the glovebox. The road runs through it on the eastern descent.
Mission San Antonio de Padua
Founded 14 July 1771 by Junípero Serra, the third mission in Alta California. It stands on Fort Hunter Liggett land, in open country with nothing modern around it — which is why it looks more like itself than almost any other mission in the state.
Jolonsay ho-LONE
Not 'JO-lon'. It is ho-LONE — a Salinan name, and one of those places where saying it right marks you as someone who has actually been. The settlement sits in the San Antonio River valley, entirely surrounded by the post.
Lockwood
On County G14 between Jolon and the highway. Blink and you have driven through it.
King City
US-101, and the end of the crossing. Fuel, food and a signal again.
Businesses and places to see on this coast
Whether a particular place is trading is its operator's to say and nobody else's, so the list is built from what each one publishes and carries the date it was last checked. Most of this coast is inside the closure and unreachable whatever its door says, and the list marks that separately from whether a business is open — they are different questions and running them together is how somebody ends up driving to a gate.
Three ways the crossing turns a dead end back into a trip, including one out of the closure itself.
You are already inside the closure and need to get out
Kirk Creek → Nacimiento-Fergusson → over the summit → Jolon → King City or Bradley → US-101
Do not plan on this road. Fort Hunter Liggett, the Army garrison its eastern half crosses and one of the authorities that can close it, was asked by telephone on 8 September 2026 and said it is closed to the public as of that call — as it had said on 28 August. No limits, order number or end date were given, so assume the whole crossing. Since 8 September the county's own road-closure layer carries it as closed for its entire length, since 30 August, until further notice, and Forest Order 05-07-51-26-10 closes it with the fire area. Its western end at Kirk Creek, MM 21, is two miles north of the Caltrans gate, so the junction is reached from Carmel — and the road east from it is shut. This is still the only paved way east off the closed stretch, which is exactly why it matters that it is shut: with this road closed there is no paved route out of the nineteen miles between the gates. If you are inside and need to get out, that is a question for the Monterey County Sheriff, not for this page and not for a map. Getting people out of an evacuation area is theirs to arrange, and it is a different question from whether a road is open to the public. Call them. Do not drive over the mountain on the strength of anything written here.
You are outside and want to reach the middle of the coast
You cannot, and coming over the top is the wrong idea
King City → Jolon → Nacimiento-Fergusson is closed: the Army said so by telephone on 8 September 2026, the county's closure layer carries it closed for its entire length since 30 August, and Forest Order 05-07-51-26-10 closes it with the fire area. Even open it was never a way in — it lands at Kirk Creek, MM 21, two miles north of the Highway 1 gate, with nowhere to drive south. Reach the north coast from Carmel and the south coast from San Simeon.
Both arms are troubled
Two separate out-and-backs, from opposite ends of the coast
Carmel down to the north gate at Kirk Creek Camp, MM 19.0, and San Simeon up to the south gate north of Gorda, MM 10.5. They do not join, and just under nine miles between them is shut.
Before you drive on this
Who to ask
This page is maintained carefully, but treat it as plus or minus 24 to 48 hours. During a fire or a storm a road can be opened in the morning and shut again by afternoon, and we will not always know before you do.
Nothing here is an authority. Before you drive on it, confirm with the Forest Service, the Sheriff's Office, Caltrans, and — for Nacimiento-Fergusson — Fort Hunter Liggett. If an agency and this page disagree, the agency is right.
Agencies and authorities
These are the bodies that decide. A road is Caltrans and CHP; an evacuation is the Sheriff; a fire is CAL FIRE and the Forest Service; a business is its own operator. Anything you would act on should come from one of these.
For whether a particular place is trading, its operator is the authority and nobody else is. Phone numbers for lodging, fuel and food on this coast are on the what-is-open page.
Every figure above comes from one of these. Nothing here updates itself — when an agency stops publishing the numbers stop moving, and a page of unchanging figures is not evidence that a fire has stopped.
A fire is real long before it is indexed. On 26 August a
fire started two miles east of Plaskett at eleven in the morning and this
page said there was no such fire, because the slow sources were still
silent. Watch Duty had it within minutes. If these disagree with each
other, the agency named as the authority is right and we are not.
We keep this as honest as we can. But fires, slides and floods do not check with anybody, and we are not the ones who decide what this coast does next.
Get told when the road or the fires change
Pick what you want to hear about. You will only ever be
emailed about the things you tick.
You are welcome to use anything on this page — the figures, the maps, the measurements — for any purpose, including reprinting it. Please attribute it, so that a reader can get back to the sources and check it for themselves.