Los Padres firefighter Kevin Poyner (facing camera) and John Knight of the Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade appear to have one foot “in the black” and the other in the Pacific Ocean. In reality, the two men have ample room between their position and the cliffs leading down to the beach.

Along Monterey’s Big Sur coast in California, the job of responding to “fire starts” rests on the shoulders of Los Padres National Forest firefighters and their partners at the Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade as Monterey County doesn’t have a fire department. When a coastal landowner’s pile burn project went awry Feb. 7, firefighters from the forest and volunteer fire brigade led the initial attack that quashed what became known as the Alder fire at less than five acres. Read more »