The Timber Fire, in Big Sur, continues to grow to the east. In the past 2 days, the fire has pushed about a mile deeper into the canyons of the Ventana Wilderness, where steep, broken terrain makes fighting the fire directly very difficult for ground-based firefighters. Helicopters have been used over the past 10 days to slow the spread of the fire in these backcountry areas, but air power alone does not put fires out, and it looks likely that the more remote areas of this fire will spread across the landscape for the remainder of the summer.
So far, the fire has been burning largely within the footprint of the 2016 Soberanes Fire, which was held to the east of the Coast Ridge Road. The patchy pattern of that previous burn affects what fuel is available to the current fire. It is likely the current fire will eventually reach areas which were not burned in 2016 and last burned in 2008. When this happens, a significant increase in fire intensity and behavior is possible.