Soberanes Fire cause: CalFires says illegal campfire

[Wrightwood]

USFS Fire-California ?@R5_Fire_News 31 minutes ago

The cause of the Soberanes Fire was an abandoned campfire









Soberanes Fire Updates
Last updated: 8/2/16 @ 7:00 AM

Acreage/Containment: 43,400 acres - 18% contained
County: Monterey
Location: Soberanes Creek, Garrapata State Park, Palo Colorado, north of Big Sur
Administrative Unit: CAL FIRE San Benito-Monterey Unit/United States Forest Service, Los Padres National Forest

Fire Information Line: 2-1-1 or 831-204-0446
Media Line: 831-484-9647

Structures Threatened: 2,000
Structures Destroyed:  57 homes, 11 outbuildings
Structures Damaged: 3 homes, 2 outbuildings
Injuries: 1 fatality

[Wrightwood]

Latest perimeter map for the over 43,000 acre #SoberanesFire in Monterey County.

[Jim Wilkins]

The fire is making it's way to the coast and hwy 1 as they seem to do up there.  I spent a month on the Kirk Fire and we were below Big Sur with a camp of 3,000.  Very large amount of illegal groves on the forest which could have been source for fire but as our own USFS Angeles volunteers can attest, there are a lot of folks who don't pay any attention to the no fire edicts.

[Toolman]

That's right Jim, we've been patrolling for 10 years now and we pretty much know where to look for abandoned illegal campfire rings now. Those are the first on my list to investigate when I go out in the morning. I recently wrote two locations up, and both locations were probably less than 5 miles away, as the crow flies, from Wrightwood. We break down the rings and they keep popping up again in the same locations. No campfire posts usually get ripped out of the ground or shot up.

[Wrightwood]

US Forest Service:
For the last 10 years, an average of about 3,500 human-caused wildfires have burned an average of approximately 400,000 acres of National Forest System land annually, with most caused by campfires. (http://www.fs.fed.us/managing-land/fire)