River Fire and Carmel Fire

May contain: mountain, outdoors, and nature — The River Fire on August 16, 2020 (photo credit: Dawn Fenton)

In the early morning hours of August 16, a series of strong thunderstorms and dry lightning came through Monterey County, creating a spectacular lightshow, and unfortunately sparking one of the largest fires we have seen in our jurisdiction in years. Around 3:04 am, lightning struck ground in upper Pine Canyon at Black Mountain and started a vegetation fire. Monterey County Regional Fire units were already out responding to other incidents and were able to locate the general area of the fire quickly and begin ordering appropriate resources to access the fire in very difficult terrain. Cal Fire has since joined in a unified command for the River Fire and a management team is now in place.

On August 18, a second fire was reported in Carmel Valley off Cachagua Road. It continues to burn actively in the area and evacuation orders are rapdily changing.

As it is often faster for our residents to access information directly, we encourage our community to use the following useful links:

CAL FIRE "River Fire" Incident Page

https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/8/16/river-fire/

CAL FIRE "Carmel Fire" Incident Page

https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/8/18/carmel-fire/

River Fire Incident Media and Public Information Line

925-532-5455 or 2-1-1.

Alert Monterey County Current Notifications Page

(Also, sign-up here for the A!ert Monterey County messages)

https://member.everbridge.net/453003085611217/notif

https://www.co.monterey.ca.us/government/departments-a-h/emergency-communications-911/citizen-awareness/alert-monterey-county

Monterey County Sheriff Twitter Account - Status of Evacuation Orders