Firefighters reflect on battling the Soberanes Fire.

Firefighters have set up shop at a new—and bigger—command station in Carmel Valley meant to serve the growing number of fire crews assisting in the 40,618-acre Soberanes Fire.

With more than 5,000 fire personnel working the blaze, which has grown larger than the city of San Francisco, housing has become a challenge, says Rigoberto Herrera, a Cal Fire official.

Herrera, for example, has to travel to Morgan Hill, an hour's drive from the fire command center, to find a hotel room to sleep in. Available rooms in Monterey County are becoming more difficult to find, he says, plus rooms are getting more costly as demand goes up. With the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance around the corner, hotel rooms are likely to become more scarce.

Other firefighters are spending the night at the incident command center set up last week at Toro Park off Highway 68, and others at two newer command centers that were established over the weekend at Rancho Cañada in Carmel Valley and at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

On Monday afternoon, at the Carmel Valley command center, a handful of firemen rest up from their 30-hour shifts. They say it has been hard to sleep, and compare their state of mind to PTSD-like symptoms.

One says it is hard to turn off your brain after it's wired to be on attack mode for hours, sometimes encountering flames that can reach up to 50 feet high.

Ken Jenkins, a 13-year firefighting veteran, says his biggest fear is falling trees, an ever-present danger in the terrain where the Soberanes Fire is burning.

“You just hear this loud creaking sound,” Jenkins says. “One time this massive tree fell 30 feet away from me.”

Hearing that, another firefighter, Randy Tius, chimes in. “Even when you go home, you start noticing things. You start listening for what you look for in the fire and take that home with you,” Tius says.

But one of biggest fears is something small: fire ants.

“There was a giant red ant hill near a fire once, and I got bitten all over,” Tius says. “Between red ants and poison oak? I’ll take poison oak any time.”

As these men lie on the grass for a rest, they say it will be a good night if they get four hours of sleep. On Tuesday, they head out to battle the growing fire that has destroyed 57 homes, left one bulldozer driver dead and has threatened thousands of homes.

The fire is at 18-percent containment, and full containment is expected by the end of the month.