In today's newscast:
More fire in Big Sur
Another fire has broken out in Big Sur, south of the Timber Fire. The Plaskett Fire started Wednesday east of Los Burros Road. Though it is currently small, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office has issued one evacuation order and two warnings.
Meanwhile, the Timber Fire is currently the second largest fire in the state.
To support firefighting work, as of 1 p.m. this afternoon, the sheriff’s office is upgrading three zones from evacuation warnings to orders. It’s also issuing shelter-in-place orders for several zones.
Find the latest on all of these orders, for both fires, on the resources tab of our Timber Fire page.
Also, Highway 1 from mile marker 50 to mile marker 42.6 will be closed beginning at 1 p.m. today to protect safety and support the firefighters.
If additional Highway 1 closures are confirmed for the Plaskett Fire, we will update the live blog.
Historic coastal swim
A record-breaking endurance athlete is swimming her way down the California Coast. She stopped at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove on Tuesday, where pelicans flew in formation and sailboats glided behind the open-water swimmer. She spoke to a crowd of more than 150 people.
"I feel like I’m standing in a postcard," said Catherine Breed, whose stopover in Monterey marks the halfway point of what will be a historic 900-mile ocean swim from Oregon to Mexico.
"I grew up on this coastline," she said, "I love it so much."
She’s calling the journey Swim California and is using the spotlight to underscore the work of the California Coastal Commission on the 50th anniversary of the California Coastal Act.
" What they're doing behind the scenes to fight to conserve this place that we love and recreate in is really, really cool."
She said she and her team spotted their first albatross in Monterey Bay and they were also greeted by whales and a super pod of hundreds of dolphins offshore.
" It’s amazing," she said, "and then you get into shore and you see the kelp and the sea lions and the otters and you just feel like you’re living in the aquarium."
Breed and her team are 10 days ahead of schedule and she plans to get back in the water by the end of the week, once conditions allow.
