Fire season in California is now year-round, but August 2020 has been a particularly bad time for wildfires, with major fires burning all over the state. In Monterey County, three fires started within three days: The River Fire, due to a lightning strike on Mount Toro on Aug. 16; the Carmel Fire in Cachagua on Aug. 18 (under investigation); and the Dolan Fire, due to suspected arson, on Aug. 18.
Our coverage of this wildfire season, from the oldest at the bottom to the newest at the top, is below. Updated data points are as follows, based on the latest confirmed data from Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service—note that these agencies may lag in reporting as they update official figures.
As of 8am Jan. 25, 2021:
Dolan Fire: 124,924 acres, 100% contained, 19 structures destroyed (14 homes, 5 other structures)
River Fire: 48,088 acres, 100% contained, 30 structures destroyed (13 homes, 17 other structures)
Carmel Fire: 6,905 acres, 100% contained, 73 structures destroyed (50 homes, 23 other structures)
More than five months after the blaze started, consuming about 125,000 acres in Big Sur, the Dolan Fire is now considered 100-percent containe…
After burning for more than three months across 124,924 acres, from Big Sur in the west to Fort Hunter Liggett in the east, the Dolan Fire has…
Three months later, the Dolan Fire is still burning.
Criminal investigators have now concluded that the devastating Dolan Fire in Big Sur was “probably” ignited by Ivan Geronimo Gomez, a 31-year-…
U.S. Forest Service Fire Captain Casey Allen was released from hospital care on Wednesday, Oct. 28, some 50 days after being airlifted to the …
Much of Northern California is going dark as Pacific Gas & Electric preemptively shuts off power to prevent its equipment from starting fi…
Some numbers usually go in one direction only. The acreage a wildfire has burned, for example, goes up and up until it levels off, but it does…
While there may be some visible smoke, the Dolan Fire is on its way to being fully contained. The fire, which is believed to have been caused …
The criminal case against the man accused of setting the Dolan Fire in Big Sur will proceed after a Monterey County Superior Court judge found…
On Monday, Sept. 14, as President Donald Trump lectured Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, and the Calif…
Containment of the Dolan Fire increased to 46 percent overnight on Friday, as firefighters continue working to control the fire on all sides. …
The criminal case against the man accused of starting the Dolan Fire in Big Sur has been suspended as officials try to determine if the suspec…
Big Sur was on fire as Fourth of July weekend began in 2008, but the thing that kept Kate Novoa up all night was not the Basin Complex Fire it…
After being ordered closed because of wildfire danger, three state parks south of Carmel along the coast have been reopened for daytime recrea…
In real life, if you're driving or walking, Arroyo Seco and coastal Big Sur can feel worlds apart. As the crow flies (or as a wildfire moves) …
On the day he was evacuated from his home due to the River Fire, Monterey County Air Pollution Control Officer Richard Stedman was trimming tr…
The largest fire in Monterey County's recorded history was the Marble Cone fire, which took place in 1977 and burned 177,866 acres.
At high noon on Wednesday, Sept. 9, the skies to the west of Highway 101 in Monterey County were dark, filled with smoke from the growing Dola…
A fire official had just drawn an “X” in white on the windshield of Joe Burnett’s truck on Sept. 2, clearing him and his colleague Darren Gros…
Early on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 14 firefighters working the Dolan Fire found themselves in a fight for their lives near the U.S. Forest Service’s N…
Firefighters battling the Dolan Fire find themselves in a fight for their lives.
Now that the Dolan Fire in Big Sur has doubled in size overnight, the county has opened an evacuation center in King City for anyone evacuatin…
Three firefighters have been airlifted from the Dolan Fire in Big Sur after sustaining serious injuries; one is in critical condition. The thr…
Over the last few days, fire crews have been successful in containing the Dolan Fire, which is 40 percent contained as of Friday, Sept. 4. But…
The local assistance center operating out of the Monterey Conference Center to help people and businesses impacted by wildfires will remain op…
JEN HUNTER, DIRECTOR OF THE HASTINGS NATURAL HISTORY RESERVE IN CARMEL VALLEY, SOUNDED DESPERATE as she tweeted directly to @CALFIREBEU on the…
Now 29,550 acres, the Dolan Fire in Big Sur continues growing by roughly 1,000 acres each day, according to the U.S. Forest Service, the lead …
Information matters, especially during a wildfire, when there can be too much.
In what's being described as a one-stop-shop for people and businesses impacted by the River, Carmel and Dolan fires of Monterey County, a loc…
First came the pandemic. Then came the wildfires. And still, humanity endures.
Centerpiece
Gomez may have started the Dolan Fire, which has grown to 20,000 acres and counting and destroyed several homes…
In mid-March, had anyone in the Weekly’s offices suggested that in a few days most of us would be working remotely most days, for months on en…
As one fund replenishes, a new fund – to help victims of the River, Dolan and Carmel fires – begins…
Since the fires began on Aug. 16, up to 31,000 residents have been under evacuation orders, another 33,700 under warnings…
A community reckons with destruction and displacement as three wildfires burn in Monterey County.
As efforts to contain the Dolan Fire in Big Sur continue, officials on Aug. 26 issued an order closing an area of Los Padres National Forest s…
The River, Dolan and Carmel fires infused the air with toxic contaminants making it risky for nearly all Monterey County residents and touris…
Plan for the worst, hope for the best, they say—and sometimes the best actually happens.
Weather forecasting: An art and a science.
After a week of challenging news, Monterey County finally received some good news on Monday morning: Some of the evacuation orders and warning…
At around 11am Sunday, the thunderstorms expected to bring dry lightning and wind gusts of up to 65 mph to Monterey County were reported just …
On Saturday afternoon, the smoke in Big Sur finally cleared enough to allow firefighters to send an infrared-equipped aircraft up for an overh…
First, some good news: Cal Fire made progress keeping the Carmel Fire and River Fire within existing containment lines overnight from Saturday…
The wildfires in the mountains to the west of the Salinas Valley are depositing ash on every outdoor surface, including on the fruits and vege…
Photos from the Dolan Fire which started due to suspected arson, on Aug. 18.
Losing everything in a fire means more than just stuff.
The River Fire began near the top of one Pine Canyon Road, off River Road just about five miles south of Salinas. The area under evacuation ad…
There's been a lot of attention for the past 24 hours on new evacuation advisories and orders to the west of where the Carmel and River fires …
As someone who lived in Big Sur for a decade and now Carmel Valley for six years, I’ve been through more wildfires than I can count. They rang…
Cal Fire and other fire agencies are already stretched. Since Aug. 15, California has seen 12,000 lightning strikes, and 585 new fires burning…
Sometimes there’s time. Other times fire hits hard and fast and close and you have to get out with what you can, when you can. There’s an adre…
The littlest evacuee from the wildfires raging through Monterey County, forcing upwards of 20,000 people out of their homes as of Saturday mor…
There are thunderstorms, dry lightning and changing wind direction in the forecast, prompting evacuation orders of nearly 20,000 people in Mon…
When the Dolan Fire began in Big Sur on the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 18, due to suspected arson, dozens of other fires were already burning ac…
Nearly 20,000 Monterey County residents are now under an evacuation order due to the three fires burning here, and thousands more are under ev…
The River Fire and Carmel Fire have been creeping closer and closer together, and officials are coming up with a plan for when they meet.
Evacuations from Partington Ridge in the north down to Lucia in the south have been ordered as the Dolan Fire continues to grow. The area went…
Flames were visible from Highway 68 around dusk on Thursday evening as the River Fire continued to burn, and officials ordered a new evacuatio…
If there’s one thing the Carmel Fire in Cachagua is reminding us of, from fire newbies to charred veterans: Fire will choose its path, when an…
With fires burning all over California, the sky was already filled with smoke even before the Dolan Fire started in Big Sur around 8pm on Tues…
During the coronavirus pandemic, the outdoors has become a place of respite for many people—a place we can safely eat while indoor dining is c…
Centerpiece
1,500 homes in the hills and in the Indian Springs and Las Palmas developments along River Road, are being threatened…
Sounds so sweet, “Mother Nature.” The expression originated nearly 800 years ago: to recognize and honor the life-giving and nurturing aspects…
“It’s like a retro-nasal aromatic in your mouth, and it tastes like ashtray…”
“Your dog will likely die of the heat if you continue…”
The lighting that sparked the River Fire, and the thunder that accompanied it, shook the ground under Butch’s four feet in the pre-dawn hours of Aug. 16…
Centerpiece
Evacuations at this scale feel totally surreal, even as the danger is realer than ever.
Donald Payton stood outside the Cal Fire command center at Toro Park, a rolled map in his hand, and waited patiently for someone to help him. …
The Carmel Fire erupted Tuesday afternoon, Aug. 18, quickly burning more than 1,000 acres with zero-percent containment on day one. Structures…
As the Dolan Fire burned in Big Sur today near the Esalen Institute, firefighters worked largely from below the fire on Highway 1. Rather than…
Around 8pm on Tuesday night, large swatchs of Monterey County skies were already covered in smoke and firefighters worked to try to contain tw…
What was a suggestion just a few hours ago is now an order: If you live west of River Road from Parker Road South to Limekiln Road, and includ…
While hundreds of firefighters attempted to tame the River Fire burning near Salinas on Tuesday afternoon, another fire, this one faster-movin…
You don't have to live in an evacuation area adjacent to one of the multiple wildfires burning right now to be impacted by the fires. With fir…
When disasters converge, it’s full-on crisis mode of biblical proportions.
The River Fire that began with a lightning strike around 3am on Sunday morning, Aug. 16, has grown to 2,800 acres in the foothills about five …
At the Monterey Zoo, located at Vision Quest Ranch on River Road, more than 30 volunteers and the entire staff are standing by. They've brough…
Since the wet season began on Oct. 1, 2019, the majority of California has received below-average precipitation, and as vegetation dries out a…
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