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  • # 137 Living With Fire: Big Sur — Jimmy Panetta on Family, Fire & the Work of Public Service
    Oct 12 2026

    What does a member of Congress actually do when a wildfire breaks out in Big Sur?

    Before getting to that question, this conversation goes somewhere more personal.

    Congressman Jimmy Panetta talks about his family’s roots on the Central Coast, beginning with his grandfather Carmelo Panetta, who came to the United States from Calabria in 1921, eventually settling in Monterey and Carmel Valley. Jimmy grew up in the Carmel Valley house his grandfather built — the same house where his father, Leon Panetta, had grown up before him.

    Big Sur was part of the family landscape: childhood drives down Highway 1, days at Pfeiffer Beach, birthdays at Rocky Point and an understanding that going down the coast was something special, never something to be taken for granted.

    We talk about Jimmy’s return to Calabria and the family’s Italian roots, but also about another inheritance: public service.

    Leon Panetta served in Congress beginning in 1977, while Jimmy’s mother, Sylvia, ran his district operation and constituent services. Jimmy describes what he absorbed from both parents — particularly the idea that elected office is not fundamentally about possessing power. It is about answering the phone, showing up, doing the work and helping people navigate institutions that otherwise can feel impossibly distant.

    That leads us back to Big Sur.

    When the Timber Fire began, Panetta quickly joined a communication chain with Monterey County Supervisor Kate Daniels, State Senator John Laird and Assemblymember Dawn Addis. He visited Big Sur, met with first responders and remained involved as the U.S. Forest Service, CAL FIRE, Big Sur Fire and, during the Plaskett Fire, Fort Hunter Liggett coordinated their response.

    Panetta argues that Big Sur presents government with an unusual challenge. Residents here often possess decades — sometimes generations — of knowledge about ridges, roads, water systems, fire behavior and the practical realities of living in isolated terrain. They need to be an integral part of the conversation.

    We discuss the need for an after-action examination of the Timber and Plaskett fires; better communication among federal, state, county and local responders from the very beginning of an incident; a proposed NOAA weather-radio transmitter serving Big Sur; and the continuing importance of the Big Sur Multi-Agency Advisory Council as a place where agencies, elected officials and the community can meet before the next emergency rather than during it.

    And there will be a next one.

    _______________________________

    GOOD LINKS

    • Congressman Jimmy Panetta — official website and biography
    • Big Sur Multi-Agency Advisory Council — Monterey County
    • Big Sur Fire — Timber and Plaskett information and local emergency resources
    • Watch Duty
    • NOAA Weather Radio — Monterey Bay Area

    All comments much welcomed!

    Support the show

    _________________________________________________


    This podcast is a production of the Henry Miller Memorial Library with support from The Arts Council for Monterey County!

    Let us know what you think!
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    46 Min.
  • # 136 Living With Fire: Big Sur. John Mills and the Watch Duty We All Use
    Oct 8 2026
    John Mills on the app Big Sur turned to during Timber and Plaskett!During the Timber and Plaskett Fires, many of us, I certainly did, kept Watch Duty close at hand—checking its map, reading incident updates and waiting for the next alert. It feels indispensable. But who creates those alerts? What information reaches the reporter? What is held back until it can be confirmed? And what responsibility does a nonprofit assume when people begin trusting it with decisions about whether to stay or leave?John takes us inside the making of a Watch Duty alert—from the first dispatch signal, radio tone or camera image to the moment a trained human decides that a threat is serious enough to interrupt someone’s life. We discuss his February 2026 testimony before Congress; his provocative argument that Watch Duty’s success is evidence of a failure in official warning systems; whether a private nonprofit can become a permanent crutch for government; and whether an organization can become part of public-safety infrastructure without acquiring the authority, legal obligations or democratic accountability of a public agency. We also talk about artificial intelligence and the necessity of keeping a human in the loop; the new satellite heat-detection layer visible during the Timber and Plaskett Fires; and the indispensable value of local people who know that five miles in Big Sur may contain a ridge, a deep drainage, a one-lane road and no alternate way out!So one question is:Can technology help human beings hear and see more without replacing human judgment? And how does a grassroots service grow into national infrastructure without becoming another large, remote institution?Essential linksWatch Duty website The organization’s main page, app downloads and overview.Open the live Watch Duty map in a browser Useful for listeners who do not wish to install the application.How Watch Duty works A particularly good companion to the discussion of how an alert moves from initial signal to human verification and public notification.Watch Duty Code of Conduct Covers source confirmation, hearsay, sensationalism, internal discussion, corrections and the principle that accuracy is more important than speed.Volunteer with Watch Duty Directly answers John’s invitation to Big Sur residents with local knowledge. Watch Duty says reporters begin as volunteer contributors and receive training and onboarding. Donate to Watch Duty John emphasizes that keeping the public service free, independent and advertising-free depends upon financial support.Local fire contextOfficial Timber Fire incident page CAL FIREOfficial Plaskett Fire incident page CAL FIRE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Organizations and platforms mentionedFirewise USAUC San Diego WIFIRECalTopoPulsePointNixleNIFCWildCADAwareCANOAACIMSSNORAD>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Useful fire-service language heard in the conversationTone-out — An audible radio signal used to dispatch particular equipment, crews or stations.Initial attack — The first response to a newly reported fire.Drawdown — The depletion or heavy commitment of available firefighting resources across a region.Incident command — The personnel and structure directing an emergency response.Deconflict — To reconcile contradictory reports or competing sources of information.Repop / repopulation order — Authorization for evacuated residents to return.Containment — The percentage of a fire perimeter that has been secured; it does not mean the same percentage of the fire has been extinguished.The con — In John’s description, the person taking control of the Watch Duty reporting operation for a particular incident.OG — Slang for an original or long-serving member. John calls Big Sur Kate one of the “OGs.”All comments much welcomed!Support the show_________________________________________________This podcast is a production of the Henry Miller Memorial Library with support from The Arts Council for Monterey County! Let us know what you think!SEND US AN EMAIL! 😊 magnus@henrymiller.orgFaceBookInstagram
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    1 Std. und 13 Min.
  • # 135 Living with Fire: Big Sur. THE PATTERN OF FIRE, Nikki Nedeff on What the Santa Lucias Remember
    Oct 4 2026
    What happens to the land after the fire engines leave?In this fifth conversation in our Living with Fire: Big Sur series, I talk with biogeographer, vegetation ecologist, teacher and conservation advocate Nikki Nedeff about the Timber and Plaskett Fires—not primarily as emergencies to be fought, but as ecological events whose consequences may unfold for decades.Nikki grew up exploring the Carmel River and Los Padres National Forest, studied biogeography at UC Berkeley, and taught plant-community ecology at Cal State Monterey Bay for fifteen years. Her work has centered on understanding and protecting the extraordinarily varied landscapes of Monterey County.Her starting point is deceptively simple: California vegetation isn't merely “adapted to fire.” It is adapted to a pattern of burning—a fire regime. How often does a place burn? How hot? In what season? Across what kind of terrain? And what happened there the last time it burned?Too much fire, too soon, can change the vegetation itself. Forest can become shrubland; shrubland can give way to grassland; invasive annual grasses and shrubs can exploit disturbed ground and alter what burns the next time.We talk about north- and south-facing slopes, fog and microclimates, logging and grazing, Indigenous burning, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and nitrogen, invasive plants, old redwood forests that aren't always as “old growth” as they appear, and the ecological consequences of the firebreaks and dozer lines created to fight wildfire.Nikki worries particularly about some of Big Sur's unusual conifers: Santa Lucia fir, ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir and incense-cedar. She wonders what has happened to a remarkable isolated dogwood near Logwood Creek—and what she will find when she returns to the Plaskett burn.But burned country also holds surprises. Nikki is looking forward to the spring emergence of the “fire followers”: plants whose seeds may wait for years or decades until fire creates the conditions that allow them to germinate.And then there is the coming winter.Burned slopes above roads, streams and homes bring the possibility of erosion, washouts, landslides and debris flows. Nikki's advice to those of us who live here is simple: prepare, remain self-sufficient—and look after one another.Plants mentioned in the conversationSanta Lucia fir / bristlecone fir — Abies bracteataA remarkable conifer found naturally only in the Santa Lucia Mountains. Nikki describes its vulnerability to fire and its tendency to survive in steep, rocky places where fire has difficulty carrying.Pacific dogwood — probably Cornus nuttalliiThe identification is probable rather than certain because Nikki simply calls it “dogwood.” Her description—large white floral bracts, a species otherwise associated with montane California, and an isolated Big Sur population—is consistent with Pacific dogwood. She calls the surviving Logwood Creek population the “Logwood Dogwood” and wonders whether it survived Timber.Douglas-fir — Pseudotsuga menziesiiNikki is particularly interested in what happened to Douglas-fir in the Willow Creek watershed during the Plaskett Fire.Incense-cedar — Calocedrus decurrensAnother unusual Central Coast conifer occurring in scattered Santa Lucia populations.Ponderosa pine — Pinus ponderosaOne of the conifers Nikki worries may have difficulty regenerating when fire returns before young trees become mature enough to reproduce.Coast redwood — Sequoia sempervirensNikki reminds us that much of what looks ancient in Big Sur's redwood country is actually second- or even third-growth following historic logging.Sargent cypress — Hesperocyparis sargentiiFound around serpentine outcrops in the South Coast/Los Burros country. Nikki is eager to see how these areas responded to Plaskett.Harlequin lupine — Lupinus stiversiiThe distinctive yellow-and-magenta lupine Nikki mentions among the wildflowers she hopes to see in the first post-fire spring.Santa Lucia phacelia — Phacelia griseaA California endemic occurring in the Santa Lucia Range and one of the post-fire flowers Nikki hopes to encounter.Shortlobe phacelia — Phacelia brachylobaThe fire-following phacelia shown in Nikki's photograph after the 2020 Dolan Fire. This is distinct from the Santa Lucia phacelia mentioned in the conversation.Splendid woodland-gilia — Saltugilia splendensFormerly known as Gilia splendens. Another striking annual Nikki mentions among the post-fire wildflowers.Chamise — Adenostoma fasciculatumOne of the characteristic shrubs of California chaparral and a vigorous post-fire resprouter.Manzanita — Arctostaphylos spp.Nikki speaks of watching for manzanitas resprouting; she doesn't identify a particular species.Ceanothus — Ceanothus spp.Another important chaparral group whose response depends greatly upon species and fire history.California coffeeberry — Frangula californicaA native shrub Nikki expects to see resprouting.French broom ...
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    1 Std. und 9 Min.
  • LIVING WITH FIRE: BIG SUR - Kate Daniels, Responsibility Without Authority
    Oct 2 2026

    What happens when local knowledge meets the machinery of government during the Timber and Plaskett Fires.

    This is the fourth conversation in Living With Fire: Big Sur, an ongoing A Big Sur Podcast examination of the Timber and Plaskett Fires and of Big Sur’s larger relationship with wildfire.

    The previous conversations have taken us to some different parts of the same emergency. Marcus Foster described experienced local residents protecting threatened properties during the early days of the Timber Fire and the sometimes difficult meeting between local knowledge and professional incident command. Lucas Handy brought us to the South Coast and into the remarkable sequence of experiencing Timber and then, only days later, responding to the Plaskett Fire close to his home and family at Treebones. Kate Novoa—Big Sur Kate—looked at another essential part of an emergency: information, rumor, verification and trust.

    Now we follow some of those same voices into government.

    Kate Daniels is Monterey County Supervisor for the Fifth District, which includes Big Sur. She first appeared on A Big Sur Podcast in 2023, when she was still a candidate. In that conversation she talked about wanting to be bold and visionary, about governing as a facilitator, and about treating elected office as a temporary opportunity to make a difference.

    The Timber and Plaskett Fires gave those ideas a very different meaning.

    Daniels describes recognizing early that Timber would not be an incident measured in hours; the extraordinary Monday when residents on a threatened ridge were asking for firefighting resources; her efforts to carry their information to Senator John Laird and CAL FIRE; and the realization that Big Sur needed a better way of getting reliable, on-the-ground information into county government.

    Out of that came nightly meetings connecting community organizations and residents with the County Administrative Office. Daniels describes an evolving chain of communication: local people to community representatives, those representatives to the county, and the county to the agencies with the authority to act.

    The conversation also exposes one of the central tensions of emergency government: responsibility without complete authority. A supervisor may be the person constituents call, but decisions about fire tactics, evacuation orders, Highway 1 closures and other critical actions belong to different agencies and officials.

    We talk about CAL FIRE and the Forest Service, the Sheriff, CHP, Caltrans, the Emergency Operations Center, CERT, CABS and Big Sur Fire. We return repeatedly to the value—and the complications—of local knowledge: residents who know obscure ridge roads, water sources, turnarounds, fire history and the capabilities of their own properties in ways that an incoming crew simply cannot know immediately.

    Daniels also talks candidly about frustration, anger, mistakes, strained relationships, and the need to preserve those relationships even while arguing forcefully for the community she represents.

    And the conversation does not end when the flames recede.

    With large burn scars above the coast, attention is already shifting toward winter: debris flows, blocked culverts, Highway 1, stream and river channels and the possibility that the next phase of this emergency will arrive with the rain.

    Perhaps the most important question running through this episode is the one that has emerged across the entire series:

    How do we take the knowledge, relationships and improvisations that helped during these fires and turn them into something that already exists when the next one begins?

    Living With Fire: Big Sur continues with additional voices from the community, government, science and emergency response.

    All comments much welcomed!

    Support the show

    _________________________________________________


    This podcast is a production of the Henry Miller Memorial Library with support from The Arts Council for Monterey County!

    Let us know what you think!
    SEND US AN EMAIL! 😊
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    1 Std. und 19 Min.
  • # 133 Living With Fire: Big Sur - Kate — How do we know what we know when Big Sur is burning?
    Sep 27 2026

    This is the third conversation in Living With Fire: Big Sur, an ongoing A Big Sur Podcast series examining the Timber and Plaskett Fires from different points of view—and asking what they can tell us about living with wildfire in Big Sur.

    Previous episodes:
    # 131 Living With Fire: Big Sur - Marcus Foster on the Timber Fire, Local Knowledge, and What Comes Next
    # 132 Living With Fire: Big Sur — Lucas Handy, When the Fire Came South

    LINKS:
    Watch Duty
    Big Sur Fire
    Community Association of Big Sur
    Fire Adapted Big Sur
    &

    Big Sur Kate Online

    Kate Novoa—known to almost everyone around here as Big Sur Kate—started her blog during the 2008 Basin Complex Fire. What began as an improvised way of getting accurate information to her neighbors has become an extraordinary running record of Big Sur: fires, storms, slides, Highway 1 closures, government decisions, community disputes and everyday life.

    During the Plaskett Fire, however, Kate suddenly found herself on the other side of that information system. Away from home and unable to return because of the evacuation, she received word that her house had burned. For a short time she believed it. Then she began doing exactly what she has done for the rest of us for eighteen years: checking the source, withholding judgment, finding someone closer to what had actually happened, and waiting for confirmation.

    Her house had survived, although the fire damaged her water system and burned frighteningly close.

    That experience opens into a much larger conversation.

    We talk about rumor and verification; how Kate decides whom to trust; the difference between official information and local knowledge; why the first hours of an emergency are so difficult; her work with Watch Duty; what a deeply local reporter can contribute that a national emergency-information system cannot; and why knowing who knows may be just as important as knowing the information yourself.

    Kate also talks about the archive she has unintentionally created. Thousands of posts dating back to 2008 now amount to something close to a contemporaneous history of modern Big Sur—and she is beginning to think seriously about who will preserve and continue it.

    And, inevitably, we talk about Highway 1, the coming winter, burned watersheds, the possibility of renewed slides and isolation, and the peculiar Big Sur habit of fighting with one's neighbors right up until the moment something terrible happens—at which point everybody helps everybody! (-:

    Near the end I return to something Kate told me years ago about falling in love with Big Sur.

    After fires, evacuations, slides and nearly losing her home, I ask whether she still feels the same way.

    Her answer is very simple:

    “More. I love it even more.”

    __________________________

    More Living With Fire: Big Sur conversations are coming, including Monterey County District 5 Supervisor Kate Daniels, biogeographer and ecologist Nikki Nedeff, co-founder of Watch Duty John Mills, and others involved in the fires, the response and the larger question of how Big Sur prepares for what comes next.

    All comments much welcomed!

    Support the show

    _________________________________________________


    This podcast is a production of the Henry Miller Memorial Library with support from The Arts Council for Monterey County!

    Let us know what you think!
    SEND US AN EMAIL! 😊
    magnus@henrymiller.org

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    56 Min.
  • # 132 Living With Fire: Big Sur — Lucas Handy, When the Fire Came South
    Sep 22 2026

    Living With Fire: Big Sur is an ongoing series of conversations about the Timber and Plaskett Fires—and, more broadly, about what it means to live with wildfire in Big Sur.

    In this episode I talk with Lucas Handy of Treebones Resort, on the South Coast of Big Sur.

    Longtime listeners may remember that Lucas's parents, John and Corinne Handy, have both been guests on A Big Sur Podcast, talking about Treebones—the remarkable place they created on the South Coast and the family and community that grew around it. Lucas was thirteen when the family moved there. Big Sur has been home ever since.

    Lucas's experience of the recent fires is unusual because he found himself in the middle of both.

    When the Timber Fire began, he returned to Big Sur and joined friends and neighbors around Partington Ridge, helping with clearing, supplies and preparations while also documenting what was happening with his camera. Then he came home to the South Coast.

    Five days later, the Plaskett Fire started.

    This time the fire was in his own neighborhood.

    Lucas takes us onto Willow Creek and Los Burros roads and describes the uncertainty of those first hours, the work of neighbors, the arrival—and sometimes absence—of professional resources, the shortage of water, and a back-burn operation that suddenly became something much more dangerous.

    At one point Lucas and a friend found themselves trying to leave a property as fire crossed their only way out. They eventually drove through flames to escape. It is quite a story.

    But this conversation isn't primarily about heroics. It's about judgment, local knowledge, responsibility, and community. When should we, the residents, stay and help? When are we simply putting ourselves and firefighters in greater danger? What do we know that an arriving fire crew cannot know? And what do professional firefighters understand that even experienced residents may not? And who are 'we' to decide?

    We also talk about Treebones itself. Guests were evacuated, reservations cancelled, and the resort became an impromptu support center for firefighters—food, showers, a place to sleep, and, importantly, water.

    Toward the end of our conversation Lucas says something that may be at the heart of this entire series. Driving through the burned landscape afterward, what overwhelmed him wasn't simply fear or relief. It was pride in the way this community had come together.

    And he talks movingly about his late brother Mike Handy, who had been a captain with Big Sur Fire, and the feeling that in doing this work he was, in some small way, carrying his brother with him.

    This is the second conversation in Living With Fire: Big Sur. More voices will follow—residents, scientists, public officials, firefighters, communicators and others trying to understand what happened during these fires, what worked, what didn't, and what Big Sur might learn before the next one.

    All comments much welcomed!

    Support the show

    _________________________________________________


    This podcast is a production of the Henry Miller Memorial Library with support from The Arts Council for Monterey County!

    Let us know what you think!
    SEND US AN EMAIL! 😊
    magnus@henrymiller.org

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    1 Std. und 34 Min.
  • # 131 Living With Fire: Big Sur - Marcus Foster on the Timber Fire, Local Knowledge, and What Comes Next
    Sep 20 2026

    What happens in the hours after a wildfire starts in Big Sur—before the full machinery of a major incident has arrived?

    Over the coming weeks, A Big Sur Podcast will be talking with a number of people about the Timber and Plaskett Fires, and more broadly about Big Sur’s long and complicated relationship with wildfire.

    This first conversation is with Marcus Foster of Keep Big Sur Wild, who was on the ground during the early hours of the Timber Fire and has been involved with wildfire response in Big Sur for many years.

    Marcus has lived in Big Sur for nearly 35 years and served for roughly twelve years with Big Sur Fire. During the recent Timber Fire, his eighteen-year-old son responded with the department and was injured early in the incident. As the fire moved toward homes on a ridge above the coast, Marcus joined a small group of experienced locals preparing water systems, laying hose and protecting structures as the fire reached them.

    In this conversation, Marcus describes those first difficult hours and the uneasy boundary between local knowledge and professional incident command: why outside crews may quite reasonably hesitate to enter unfamiliar narrow roads at night, why residents sometimes believe they can help, and how the two systems might work together better.

    But the conversation reaches beyond the Timber Fire.

    Marcus discusses his experiences with earlier Big Sur fires, the role of Big Sur Fire, changing visitation and dispersed camping, illegal campfires, social media’s ability to suddenly overwhelm formerly little-known places, and his belief that substantially more attention and resources should go toward prevention and enforcement.

    As a member of Keep Big Sur Wild, he also raises a more complicated question: How much should we alter a wild landscape in the name of protecting homes from wildfire? Marcus argues for home hardening and defensible space while questioning large-scale vegetation clearing that can affect habitat and the scenic character Big Sur’s Land Use Plan was designed to protect.

    This episode is one part of a continuing A Big Sur Podcast examination of the Timber and Plaskett Fires. I’ll be speaking with other residents, firefighters, public officials and people involved in the response—not in search of one simple verdict, but to understand what worked, what didn’t, and what Big Sur should learn before the next fire begins.

    Because in Big Sur, the question is not whether there will be another fire. It is how ready we will be when it comes.

    <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

    Keep Big Sur Wild

    Previous Big Sur Podcast episode with Marcus

    All comments much welcomed!

    Support the show

    _________________________________________________


    This podcast is a production of the Henry Miller Memorial Library with support from The Arts Council for Monterey County!

    Let us know what you think!
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    magnus@henrymiller.org

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    1 Std. und 24 Min.
  • # 130 Melting Point: Rachel Cockerell on Family, Memory, and the Promised Land
    Jul 20 2026

    Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land

    A dusty, life-size portrait no one looked at. A family name no one could spell. And a single line in a 1941 obituary — "a household name for Jews across the Russian Empire." At 24, Rachel Cockerell started pulling that thread, and it led her from a messy house in North London to the docks of Galveston, Texas.

    I talk with Rachel in her home in London about Melting Point.

    As you'll hear, I'm a big fan of the book, of how it's put together, and of the way Rachel talks about it. I highly recommend both reading the book and listening to our conversation. I wish I could send a copy to everyone!

    Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, UK / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, US) is her first book — an experimental history told entirely through primary sources, following David Jochelman, Israel Zangwill, and the Galveston movement.

    Mentioned in this episode: East West Street by Philippe Sands • Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders • The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson • Orbital by Samantha Harvey • The Grocer on Elgin, Notting Hill • and, of course, an open invitation to the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur.

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

    More from Rachel:

    How I told my family's history through the words of early Zionists - The Jewish Chronicle

    Zionism, the Melting Pot, and the Galveston Project (with Rachel Cockerell) - Econlib

    Rachel Cockerell's 'Melting Point' revisits chapter of Jewish migration - The Washington Post

    All comments much welcomed!

    Support the show

    _________________________________________________


    This podcast is a production of the Henry Miller Memorial Library with support from The Arts Council for Monterey County!

    Let us know what you think!
    SEND US AN EMAIL! 😊
    magnus@henrymiller.org

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    1 Std. und 16 Min.