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The Soberanes Fire, raging across California’s Big Sur coast, has now exceeded $200 million in cost to fight and the most recent estimates are that it is 71 percent contained. According to a recent California Interagency Incident Management Team, unfavorable weather conditions and strong northwest winds, carried embers across one of the control lines on Monday night and into heavy fuels. This wind event produced a spot fire on the east side of the dozer/containment line resulting in a new evacuation order.
As the costliest US fire in history the daily cost to fight the fire is now averaging $2 million per day. The peak in fighting the fire was $8 million per day. According to Iveth Hernandez, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service, part of the reason for the drop in daily cost is because the fire is burning in remote areas of Los Padres National Forest and the number of personnel fighting the blaze is down.
The extreme cost of fighting the fire is attributable to both the almost two-month duration of the fire and having to pay thousands of firefighters. The figure does not include the actual damages done by the fire like destroyed homes or other structures, but rather just the costs of extinguishing and containing it. Currently some 2,020 firefighters are working the fire lines to contain the blaze though some 5,600 personnel were battling the fire at its high point.
The inferno started as an illegal and unattended campfire on July 22 in Garrapata State Park. Thus far, the fire has destroyed 57 homes and 11 outbuildings, with 410 more structures still threatened. The most recent flare-up and the new evacuation orders places even more structures at risk.
The Associated Press recently reported that, “California is seeing a relative lull in active and dangerous wildfires as it awaits its heavy fire season, but three major uncontained fires are still burning around the state as wildfire conditions continue to expand into previously safe months, and new ones break out almost daily.”
The previously record-holder for the largest US Fire was the Biscuit Fire of 2002. This approximately $165 million started as five separate fires ignited by lightning. It burned nearly 500,000 acres in Northern California and Southern Oregon, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
Incident Commander Rocky W. Opliger, with the USFS, California Interagency Incident Management Team 4, has indicated that best estimates for containment would be Friday, September 30th, 2016. The fire is being fed by chaparral, tall grass and timber, and winds with intermittent gusts of up to 30-40 mph. California’s drought, now entering its fifth year has provided unfavorable conditions for firefighters including excessive heat, dead vegetation, dry grass and timber.
