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 open the length of this drive — 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.
Two fires are burning on this coast: the Timber Fire at 25,435 acres and 44% contained (interagency record, 15 Sep 4:00pm PT), the Plaskett Fire at 29,993 acres and 89% contained (interagency record, 15 Sep 6:33pm PT). No evacuation Orders remain on either fire: the last went to a Warning at 5:58am on 14 September, and 6 zones are under a Warning (Sheriff via the Cal OES layer, read 15 Sep 12:10am 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
Nothing published has moved. That is a statement about what the agencies have put out, not about the fire — the quietest feed on this coast belongs to the road that has no published status at all.
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. Between 28 August and 14 September they were published as one Highway 1 closure, because between them they cut the same road. That closure has lifted and the road is open; the fires are still burning, and they are still two fires.
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
Three public sources on one picture: the federal interagency perimeter, the
Sheriff's evacuation zones through Cal OES, 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.
burned, as last mapped
back-country camp, inside the mapped perimeter
back-country camp, outside it — none of them is somewhere to go
Three public sources on one picture: the federal interagency perimeter, the
Sheriff's evacuation zones through Cal OES, 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.
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
Three public sources on one picture: the federal interagency perimeter, the
Sheriff's evacuation zones through Cal OES, 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
Highway 1 is open end to end. You can drive Carmel to San Simeon, and the coast is one road again — the three stretches below are how people describe it, not places it is cut. Expect one-way traffic control where crews are working.
Operators on the Coast
Everyone who runs something on this coast — lodges, restaurants, stores, campgrounds, fuel — set down the road north to south and coloured by whether you can use them today: green open, amber open in part, red shut. 40 on the map, 36 of them linked to the operator’s own site; tap a name to go there.
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 fires are still burning and neither closes Highway 1. What they still close is the ground either side — the Forest Service's fire-area order, the county's forest roads, two state parks and the evacuation warnings.
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.
Highway 1 past this fire — Point Sur, Big Sur village, Nepenthe, Esalen — is open, under a one-way control at Rocky Creek Bridge for construction and another for emergency work on the burn between Lucia and Julia Pfeiffer Burns. The ground beside it is not clear: the zones from Point Sur to Esalen are under Evacuation Warnings, and Andrew Molera and Pfeiffer Big Sur State Parks are closed on State Parks' own notice.
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: Highway 1 past this fire — Point Sur, Big Sur village, Nepenthe, Esalen — is open, under a one-way control at Rocky Creek Bridge for construction and another for emergency work on the burn between Lucia and Julia Pfeiffer Burns. The ground beside it is not clear: the zones from Point Sur to Esalen are under Evacuation Warnings, and Andrew Molera and Pfeiffer Big Sur State Parks are closed on State Parks' own notice.
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.
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 1,219, read 15 September 2026. It was 1,600 on 7 September and 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: 25,435 acres and 44% contained on the interagency record, read 16 September 2026. This fire has all but stopped moving.
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 5:20pm on 15 September and the fire has grown since, so every figure here is the furthest it could be, not the nearest.
Reported 2026-09-15 16:00
Since 26 Aug
Plaskett Fire
29,993 acres · 89% 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.
Highway 1 runs through this fire's ground and is open: Caltrans lifted the closure at 6:00am on 14 September 2026. The fire is mapped across the highway between Willow Creek and Jade Cove, so you drive through burned ground here, with one-way control for emergency work near Willow Creek. The road being open does not open what stands beside it — Los Padres Forest Order 05-07-51-26-10 keeps the campgrounds, beaches and forest roads inside the fire area shut until both fires are declared out.
Evacuation ORDER
Immediate threat to life. A lawful order to LEAVE NOW; the area is lawfully closed to public access.
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.
Forest Order 05-07-51-26-10: Los Padres National Forest closes the Timber and Plaskett fire area — all National Forest land, roads and trails inside it — until both fires are declared out. There is no end date, and the Monterey Ranger District, asked on 831-385-5434 on 15 September 2026, said it stands UNTIL NEW GUIDANCE rather than until a date. This is what keeps the campgrounds, the day-use areas, the beaches and the forest roads shut now that Highway 1 is open, and it lifts when the Forest Service says so, not when the road does.
WHAT WOULD REOPEN THEM, which is in no document: the people. Until the fires are out the firefighters are billeted in the campgrounds and the Forest Service staff and their concession operators are committed to housing and coordinating them. When those personnel are reassigned to managing public forest assets, the sites are likely to reopen. The concern, as it was put to us, is that an open beach or trail is one the public may need emergency help on, and that help cannot be given while everybody is on the fire — that last part is their likely reasoning rather than a stated policy, and is marked as such because it was told to us that way.
So the thing to watch is not the containment figure and not the road. It is the Forest Service publishing new guidance, which this site checks every hour.
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: Highway 1 runs through this fire's ground and is open: Caltrans lifted the closure at 6:00am on 14 September 2026. The fire is mapped across the highway between Willow Creek and Jade Cove, so you drive through burned ground here, with one-way control for emergency work near Willow Creek. The road being open does not open what stands beside it — Los Padres Forest Order 05-07-51-26-10 keeps the campgrounds, beaches and forest roads inside the fire area shut until both fires are declared out.
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%.
Personnel source: WFIGS attribute record, attr_TotalIncidentPersonnel 468, read 15 September 2026. It was 2,177 on 7 September and 897 on 30 August — this fire is being wound down.
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: 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.
Evacuation — changed: 14 September 2026, 05:58 — the last Evacuation Orders on this stretch went to Warnings, two minutes before Caltrans reopened Highway 1.
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 — 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 on 15 September 2026. Point-in-polygon, not a landmark reading.
Forest order — exhibit a: Exhibit A, the closed-area description, read 15 September 2026. On this stretch the boundary runs “along the property boundary of National Forest System Lands at the mean high tide line of the Pacific Ocean” — the closure reaches the water, not just the ridge.
Forest order — exhibit b: Exhibit B, the map, read 15 September 2026: the closure shading meets the shoreline along the south coast with no gap between it and the sea.
Forest order — penalty: Up to $5,000 for an individual or six months’ imprisonment, 16 U.S.C. § 551 and 18 U.S.C. §§ 3559, 3571, 3581.
Forest order — signed: District Ranger, executed at Marina, California, 28 August 2026.
Forest order — kept at: /mnt/storage/masters/orders/forest-order-05-07-51-26-10.pdf
Forest order — exceptions: Pfeiffer Beach and Sycamore Canyon Road, named in the order’s own title. The order exempts coastal access where it intends to; nothing on the south coast is exempted.
Forest order — which closure: THREE CLOSURES WERE IN FORCE HERE AND THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Caltrans closed the state highway (T1GA, lifted 6:00am 14 September). The Sheriff closed public access by evacuation order under Penal Code 409.5 (lifted to Warnings at 5:58am the same morning). The Forest Service closed National Forest land, and that one has not lifted. Its area is drawn in Exhibit A on township, range and section lines and the mean high tide line — not by reference to the road — and the order sets its own end: effective until the Timber and Plaskett Fires are declared out. A highway reopening does not reach it, and nothing newer than 29 August appears on the Los Padres alerts index, read 15 September 2026.
Forest order — who can lift it: Monterey Ranger District, Los Padres National Forest — 831-385-5434, Monday to Friday 8:00am to 4:30pm. They issued this order and they are the only body that can rescind it. Ask whether it still stands; if they say it is lifted this page will say so the same day.
Forest order — confirmed by telephone: Monterey Ranger District, 831-385-5434, asked on 15 September 2026 at 9:30am: the order stands and the trails and places it names are closed, because the fire is still burning on the east. The campgrounds are occupied by the firefighters working the fires. The agency that issued the order, speaking about it on 15 September 2026 — which answers the question the document could not: whether it still describes the ground.
Forest order — why still: It has not outlived its reason. Asked directly on 15 September 2026, the Ranger District gave one: the fire is still burning on the east. That matches the satellite from an independent direction — nine of the ten VIIRS detections in the last forty-eight hours are on the Plaskett Fire's eastern flank, within two miles of the Nacimiento-Fergusson roadway. Neither source knew about the other.
Forest order — settled — answer: In force. The trails and day-use sites stay closed UNTIL NEW GUIDANCE — not until a date.
Forest order — settled — why: Until the fires are out, the firefighters are billeted in the campgrounds and the Forest Service staff and their concession operators are committed to managing that. Nobody is left to answer a call for help on the beach trails, and the Ranger District is not opening ground it cannot cover.
Forest order — settled — what reopens it: Personnel being reassigned from the fire back to managing public forest assets. That follows the fires going out, not the road opening.
Forest order — settled — stop asking until: the Forest Service publishes new guidance. Watched by tools/check-forest-guidance.py; there is nothing a clock can tell us about a forest order.
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.
Cause: Under investigation.
About that acreage: 29,993 acres and 89% contained on the interagency record, read 16 September 2026.
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 1:44pm on 14 September and the fire has grown since, so every figure here is the furthest it could be, not the nearest.
Reported 2026-09-15 18:33
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 →
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 open end to end — you can drive Carmel to San Simeon. Expect one-way traffic control at Rocky Creek Bridge, which is construction and runs until 30 November, and further one-way control for emergency work on the burn between Lucia and Julia Pfeiffer Burns and near Willow Creek.
Cause: No closure. Both fires are still burning inland — the Plaskett Fire at 29,993 acres and 89% contained, the Timber Fire at 25,435 and 44% — and neither holds a gate on Highway 1. The closure runs from no closure reported
to no closure reported. Reopening: Open since 6:00am on Monday 14 September 2026. What would change it: only Caltrans shuts this road, and the burn scar above it is the thing to watch. Caltrans said at the reopening that recently burned ground is vulnerable to flooding and debris flows and that post-fire hazard assessment continues. The first wet storm is the next real test, and Caltrans' Lane Closure System is where it would show first.
Reference: Caltrans’ Lane Closure System, read 1 October 2026 at 7:00am PT, publishes no full closure on this stretch.
Is Highway 1 open?
PARTIALLY
Highway 1 is open, but there is a nightly closure.
Drive it — free
Take my grandmother along
The whole road came back on 14 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. Every stop on it is reachable again.
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 person2026-09-15
Those are two different things. The automatic check runs at
9 AM and 9 PM 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
There is a nightly closure on this road. You have to be through before 2:00 PM. Miss it and you do not get through at all — there is no queue to wait in.
nightly closure
Closed nightly 2:00 PM to 8:00 PM · Cause: flooding
The northbound connector to northbound SR 1 (Marin Co) is closed from 1400 hrs to 2000 hrs on Wednesday 9/30/26 - Due to flooding - Motorists are advised to use an alternate route Northbound traffic is no longer reduced to 1 lane 6.8 mi north of Gonzales (Monterey Co) at 1651 hrs on 9/30/26
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
How busy this road is
Caltrans traffic census · vehicles per day
Right nowABOUT USUAL
Late October is shoulder season on this coast, so expect traffic close to 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 9 AM and 9 PMCaltrans reported as of Thursday, October 1st, 2026 at 07:00 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
The northbound connector to northbound SR 1 (Marin Co) is closed from 1400 hrs to 2000 hrs on Wednesday 9/30/26 - Due to flooding - Motorists are advised to use an alternate route Northbound traffic is no longer reduced to 1 lane 6.8 mi north of Gonzales (Monterey Co) at 1651 hrs on 9/30/26
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.
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 coast
Open
Kirk Creek south through Gorda to the San Luis Obispo County Line
Reached from Carmel — US-101 to Salinas, then CA-68 over to Monterey
Pacific Valley
Kirk Creek
Plaskett Creek
Sand Dollar Beach
Treebonesinside the closure
Gordaopen — outside 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.
Carmel
US-101 to Salinas, then CA-68 over to Monterey
reaches the north segment
San Simeon
US-101 at Paso Robles, then CA-46 west to the coast
reaches the south segment
King City
US-101, then County G14 through Lockwood to Jolon and over Nacimiento-Fergusson — closed, and not by the highway closure, which lifted on 14 September. Fort Hunter Liggett said by telephone on 15 September 2026 that the road is closed to the public; Monterey County carries it closed for its entire length since 30 August; and Los Padres Forest Order 05-07-51-26-10 closes it with the fire area. It lands at Kirk Creek, MM 21, which is open road now — but you cannot get there this way. (Crossing status last verified 15 September 2026.)
reaches the middle
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, and the Army was asked again on 15 September 2026. Fort Hunter Liggett — the US Army garrison the eastern half of this road crosses — was asked directly by telephone on 15 September 2026 and said the road is closed, definitively and as of that call. It gave the same answer on 8 September and on 28 August. Monterey County Public Works' road-closure layer carries it closed for its entire length since 30 August, until further notice, and was read again 15 September 2026. Los Padres Forest Order 05-07-51-26-10 of 29 August closes it with the fire area and was still listed on the forest's alerts index read 15 September 2026. Highway 1 at its western end reopened on 14 September 2026 — that is a different road and it changes nothing here. None of the three states limits or an end date for the crossing 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. (Crossing status last verified 15 September 2026.)
The only ground still burning on this coast is either side of this road. Ten detections in forty-eight hours across both fires. Nine of them are on the Plaskett Fire's eastern flank, clustered within half a mile of each other and 1.7 to 2.1 miles from the Nacimiento-Fergusson roadway — seven miles short of Mission San Antonio on the installation. The tenth is on the Timber Fire, twenty-five miles north, and bears on this road not at all. The fire is not running east: its easternmost live detection is well inside its own mapped line. THIS IS NOT THE ARMY'S STATED REASON. Fort Hunter Liggett gave none — asked by telephone on 15 September 2026 they said the road is closed and nothing more, no limits and no end date. This is what the satellite shows, set beside their closure rather than offered as its cause. Note also that Monterey County's road-closure layer still gives the reason as 'Timber Fire', which was true of 30 August and is not a description of what is burning near this road now.
VIIRS thermal detections, NASA/NOAA via the interagency hotspot service, all passes in the 48 hours to 3:11am on 15 September 2026, read 15 September 2026.
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, and Highway 1 reopened on 14 September 2026 — so the crossing is no longer anybody's only way out. It is still closed in its own right: Fort Hunter Liggett said so by telephone on 15 September 2026, the county carries it closed for its entire length since 30 August, and Forest Order 05-07-51-26-10 closes it with the fire area. The junction sits at Kirk Creek, MM 21, on open highway; the road east from it is shut. (Crossing status last verified 15 September 2026.)
↑ North
Limekiln, New Camaldoli Hermitage, Lucia
as far as Carmel — open road; it is the crossing east that is shut
↓ South
Mill Creek, Pacific Valley, Sand Dollar, Plaskett Creek, Gorda, Treebones
as far as Gorda, Ragged Point and San Simeon, on Highway 1 — open since 6:00am on 14 September 2026, when Caltrans lifted the last of the Plaskett Fire closure. You can drive straight through. Nacimiento-Fergusson, the road east from this junction, is closed.
→ 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.
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, read 15 September 2026: 'Entire road 08-30-26 Until further notice — Timber Fire — Emergency'. Los Burros Road and Plaskett Ridge Road are on it too, on the same terms.
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 15 September 2026: closed to the public. (Crossing status last verified 15 September 2026.)
CLOSED — stated by the garrison on the telephone, 15 September 2026, definitively, and without limits, order number or end date; the same answer it gave on 8 September and 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 — which is why it is asked by telephone rather than read. (Crossing status last verified 15 September 2026.)
831-386-2513 (Crossing status last verified 15 September 2026.)
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.
Highway 1 is open end to end, so there is no cut stretch to get out of. The crossing matters again the day the coast is shut; it is closed in its own right today.
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.