More evacuations ordered, others downgraded as Timber Fire climbs to 7,600 acres; Hwy 1 reopens

MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. -- Additional residents in the Big Sur area of Monterey County were told to evacuate on Saturday as the nearby Timber Fire grew to nearly 7,600 acres.

Residents in evacuation zones MRY-F029 and MRY-F028-C were ordered to evacuate by the Monterey County Sheriff's Office on Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, a roughly 10-mile stretch of State Highway 1 was reopened from about two miles north of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park to the Big Sur Bakery. The highway was closed on Aug. 11 to support firefighting operations.

Two other evacuation zones were downgraded to warnings. Those zones are MRY-F027-B and MRY-F028-A.

Evacuation zones can be found at alertmry.org/alerts.

PREVIOUS STORY: Some evacuation orders downgraded as containment inches up on Big Sur wildfire

The Timber Fire had burned 7,591 acres in the northern section of the Los Padres National Forest as of Cal Fire's update on Saturday afternoon.

Over 1,200 firefighters remain assigned to the fire, which broke out on Aug. 8 southeast of the unincorporated area of Loma Vista.

The fire was 29% contained at that time and over 500 structures were threatened.

The response is being led by a CAL FIRE incident management team after the initial lead agency was the U.S. Forest Service.

The cause remains under investigation.