Big Sur recovering from Soberanes Fire setbacks

Big Sur’s Andrew Molera State Park reopened to hiking and limited camping west of Highway 1 Thursday after being closed for months as the park transformed into a command post for firefighters.

“Beautiful day, nice and sunny,” said hiker Jim Duszynski. “Everything is green out here.”

The closed signs were everywhere for months while the park became a place where the many different agencies fighting the fire met, planned and monitored the fire – as did several Big Sur state parks.

“We actually had like a little city down here, and they pretty much took care of the whole fire camp,” said Park Aid, Joey Hoppe.

According to Hoppe, after the fire was contained, it took some time to get it back up and running, but the weather is expected to be nice this weekend, so staff members are hoping for a heavy flow of people.

“The forecast is supposed to be about 70 for the next few days, so we’re just waiting for the people to come,” said Hoppe.

Up the road, shops like the River Inn & Restaurant said business has started to look up but still had vacancy at the hotel on Thursday, and so did Ripplewood Resort. I spoke to manager Sean Shadwell back in August, when fire crews were forced to close down Highway 1 in both directions. He was optimistic then and is optimistic now.

“Things are looking up so it’s hard not to be (optimistic),” said Shadwell.

Shadwell still admits that the fire significantly hurt this year’s revenue, reporting more $140,000 in loses, a big deal for a small place, Shadwell said.

Now, the looming winter brings another concern – mudslides on burned soil.

“If we get a lot of rain this year it could be problematic with debris flows and slides happening,” said Shadwell.

Still, with no significant rain in the forecast for this weekend, plus the Big Sur Food & Wine Festival, which is expected to draw in about a 1,000 people to the area, the hope is that people will come, play and stay in Big Sur.

“As long as the weather holds out, I expect business to be good,” said Shadwell.

The Soberanes Fire was started by an illegal campfire on July 22. It burned for 83 days and consumed 132,127 acres before it was fully contained on October 13.