Home-Made Backfire Saves Big Sur Compound

By Jonathan Weber, 7-07-08

	Caption: The Big Sur fire

As a raging wildfire bore down on their carefully tended family compound in Big Sur last week, a determined family did what fire managers always tell people never, ever to do: they stayed and fought, and even lit a backfire, which ended up saving their property. One of the brothers, Ross Curtis, was arrested for his trouble. But as this terrific story in the Los Angeles Times recounts, this was not some luxury compound easily replaced with insurance money, and raises the very pertinent question of whether “evacuate at the first sign of trouble” is the only reasonable approach to fires in the wildland/urban interface.