Yesterday Magnus Toren, the director of the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur sent out an email assuring us that although the fire was close to the library, the library was still standing and all of Henry Miller’s personal items had been moved up the road to Carmel.
The Henry Miller Library was evacuated during Sunday 22. All original artwork, primary source material, rare books etc. was removed to a safe location. Yesterday, July 2, we had to evacuate all of it again because the location we had chosen is now located in the newly established evacuation zone – it is now safe (!?) in Carmel. (next time we’ll take it to Seattle! (-: )
The fire descended the Graves Canyon (behind the Library) and came very close to the Library. A huge effort was mounted by the Firefighters, supported by two helicopters running in tandem up and down to the ocean with 4 – 600 gallon loads of water. Thanks to this effort the fire was stopped, almost literally, on the doorstep! Unfortunately there is still reason to be concerned; the wind, temperature and relative humidity changes and with it so does the fire behaviour.
Big Sur is no stranger to natural disaster. Fires have raged through her canyons before. Mudslides have closed Highway 1 for almost a year at least once on the recent past. It is a very rugged place where Mother Nature usually wins and the locals are never surprised by that. We always hope though, that our favorite places like The Henry Miller Library, Nepenthe, Deetjen’s, Esalen, and all the rest survive and are all the better for it.
The Big Sur fire has made national news. Last night part of Nightline was dedicated to the fire and an interview with Nepenthe general manager Kirk Gafill who is defying the evacuation order and staying with five of his employees, who also live on the property, to defend it.
You can get library fire updates on the HML site.
If you’ve got any fire news or just want to wish the library and Big Sur well, feel free to comment!
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Tags: big sur, fires, henry miller, road trip, south
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To get up to date news from the locals as they report it you can go to: http://surfire2008.wordpress.com/