About: Marble Cone Fire

The Marble Cone Fire was a wildland fire which burned for three weeks in August, 1977 in the Santa Lucia Mountains high country, at the Big Sur area of Monterey County, California. By the time it was extinguished, it had burned about 178,000 acres (720 km2) in the Santa Lucia Mountains, known as the Ventana Wilderness, making it the largest wildfire in recorded California history at that time. The fire burned 90% of the vegetation cover in the upper Big Sur River watershed. This posed the threat of serious flooding in the Big Sur River Valley, where a much smaller August 1972 fire had led to severe flooding later that year. This time, the rains were moderate and resulted in no major flooding problems.