I was wondering how this fire and the closing of Highway 1 would affect this event which is now one of the largest car shows in the U.S. held every year this time of year. With Highway 1 closing this will change quite a few things regarding the Concourse D'elegance this year I believe as the antique racing cars especially like to drive down there because of all the corners on the way down past Big Sur. People have Told me who have been there that the traffic is pretty bad lately this week on the Peninsula almost everywhere because so many people now come for this event with their really expensive Cars with some 100 years old or more now that they have kept running still.
Several years ago now my wife and I went because she won a discount ticket to go from some sort of raffle as a benefit for a school. But, we only had to pay about 20% of the normal price to go because of this which was nice too. It was pretty amazing to walk around 100 year old cars and some racing cars that old too and around Rolls Royce antique vehicles and Steam engine ancient Vehicles and all sorts of unique stuff like that then.
CHP announced Tuesday
that State Route 1 is closed on the north side at 47200 Highway 1, near
Fernwood Resort, and on the south side at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State
Park Vista Point near mile marker 37.
I made it a point to close any windows open myself so we don't get smoked out here in our house as it moves north potentially towards Santa Cruz.
It's actually pretty rare to get smoke along the coast up to Santa Cruz and beyond unless there is a fire to the north or coming up from Big Sur in the Las Padres National Forest area mostly because the winds mostly come off the ocean and go inland blowing most smoke away from the coast usually.
So, because of the High Fog normal this year we don't actually have fires along the coast.
The weather lady said that at 3000 feet in the Las Padres National forest the humidity is at around 25%.
However, as far as humidity goes:
Big Sur 89%
Monterey 83%
Salinas 83 %
Watsonville 83 %
Santa Cruz 88%
Boulder Creek 85%
San Francisco 90%
San Jose 78%
Gilroy 88%
Hollister 82%
Soledad 92%
King City 86%
So, because of these very high humidity rates a fire wouldn't be very likely to go into any of these places with humidity this high because even Big Sur is at 89% humidity right now.
So, it's likely that the fire will stay at higher altitudes between 2000 to 4000 feet or more and away from more populated areas (at least for now).
Also, if we are lucky and there are wind driven spot fires the fires likely would go over towards more towards Highway 101 inland there but even Soledad with 92% humidity and King City with 86% humidity likely shouldn't be affected except by the smoke if it blows there.
If you live downwind of this fire be sure to close your windows when you read this. So, likely anywhere from Morro Bay to Santa Cruz to inland anywhere the wind might go you might need to close your windows now so you don't get smoked out if the wind is blowing your direction.
just remember even though the prevailing winds are west to East inland a fire creates it's own weather so smoke might go literally any direction at any altitude from along the ground to thousands of feet high depending upon conditions.
Highway
1 is now closed to the public in part of Big Sur as the Timber Fire
continues to spread and evacuation orders expand, according to the
California Highway Patrol.
CHP announced Tuesday
that State Route 1 is closed on the north side at 47200 Highway 1, near
Fernwood Resort, and on the south side at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State
Park Vista Point near mile marker 37.
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This an approximately 10-mile stretch of road.
Motorists are being urged to avoid the area and follow all evacuation orders and instructions from emergency personnel.
The closure comes as the Timber Fire has grown to 2,989 acres and remains 5% contained Tuesday.
The
Monterey County Sheriff’s Office also expanded evacuations Tuesday. An
immediate evacuation order was issued for Zone MRY-F023, while new
evacuation warnings were issued for zones MRY-F021-B, MRY-F022 and
MRY-F029.
All previously issued evacuation orders and warnings remain in effect.
Overnight,
the northern and eastern portions of the fire remained active, burning
primarily above the marine layer. Firefighters observed single-tree
torching and upslope runs, according to fire officials.
Despite the overnight activity, officials said the fire continues to hold on the east side of Highway 1.
Firefighters
continued structure protection efforts, primarily near Highway 1 in the
Ventana area. Crews cleared brush and other potential threats around
properties, established water systems and secured access for
firefighters and equipment.
A heavy marine layer
limited helicopter operations overnight by restricting visibility to
water dip sites below the marine layer. Crews were working Tuesday to
establish a water dip site above the inversion layer.
Warmer
and drier conditions are expected over the eastern portions of the fire
through early to mid-week. There is also a 15% chance of showers and
thunderstorms Wednesday afternoon and evening.
The
U.S. Forest Service said the Timber Fire started around 9:38 p.m.
Saturday and is burning southeast of Loma Vista in the Los Padres
National Forest.
Firefighters continue to face
steep, rugged terrain that has made accessing the fire and carrying out
suppression efforts difficult.
The cause of the Timber Fire remains under investigation.
Motorists
are urged to avoid the Big Sur area, use caution and leave roads clear
for first responders, emergency personnel and evacuees as conditions
surrounding the Timber Fire continue to change.
Is that it is primarily 12 to 18 year old girls that ride in them. Why?
Because their parents feel safer with them in a waymo alone or with girlfriends because they won't be raped possibly by the driver or killed by their 15 to 18 year old friends not good at driving yet.
As a parent and grandparent I can see the logic in this.
However, I won't go in a Waymo because even though it has a steering wheel and a brake as the passenger you are NOT allowed to use them to save your life if things go awry.
So, this is why I won't ride in one of these things personally.
But, when you hear about 5 teenagers going over a cliff and dying maybe (at least in a big city) a parent might change their mind.
I wouldn't want my daughter under any circumstances who was 12 to 18 to be driving near cliffs in a Waymo. It's just asking too much of software that is just zeros and ones in reality. However, on city streets in not to dangerous an area I can see why parents might choose this for their daughters nationwide or worldwide. But, it's not foolproof either. What is?
"The
capabilities of AI models being this strong, combined with the fact
that we don't know how to make them safe, should be a concern to all,"
Jason Hausenloy, a policy lead at the non-profit Center for AI Safety (CAIS), told ABC News.
After thinking about this AI models are sort of like a jet passenger plane. They might fly and be fine or one day they might crash and kill everyone on board. So, if you aren't thinking of them like a big passenger plane or a cruise ship that might crash and kill everyone on board then you are being very very naive.
What if an AI model went rogue and tried to kill everyone in the U.S. or another country by screwing up public water systems to make them unsanitary or downright fatal if people drank that water without boiling it? This might happen only late one night while everyone was asleep. But, would anyone detect the problem in time so people didn't die? Not sure.
Artificial intelligence disguises itself as human, attempts to dupe a web developer and mounts a malicious cyberattack -- all on its own.
This scenario may sound like science fiction but it became reality days ago. Anthropic's Mythos 5 not only tricked
humans with a fake identity and hacked into an unauthorized system, but
it attempted to conceal what it had done, a U.K. government agency said
last week, describing a July 28 incident.
The announcement came amid a string of autonomous hacks
disclosed by top AI firms OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta. Taken together,
the incidents appeared to indicate the emergence of a problem
long-feared by some industry observers: cyberattacks carried out by AI
on its own initiative.
The
development, some analysts said, is cause for serious concern, since it
underscores both the speedy advancement of AI and the fallibility of
the companies tasked with securing it. They said the risk is heightened
by a race among companies in pursuit of a model powerful enough to lead
the potentially lucrative industry.
"The
capabilities of AI models being this strong, combined with the fact
that we don't know how to make them safe, should be a concern to all,"
Jason Hausenloy, a policy lead at the non-profit Center for AI Safety (CAIS), told ABC News.
Recent Stories from ABC News
Even
so, some analysts noted, the incidents at issue involved the
intentional removal of safeguards in an effort to test the limits of AI.
In each instance, they added, the technology aimed to fulfill an
objective assigned by human operators, as opposed to contriving a
malevolent end goal.
"It's
cause for concern, but not in a science fiction-y way," Arun
Sundararajan, a professor of entrepreneurship at New York University,
told ABC News. "The AI is saying, 'You guys didn't build a secure enough
sandbox, you instructed me to do this stuff and I found a hole in it.'"
OpenAI
did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment. Anthropic
pointed to previous remarks on the subject, and Meta declined to
comment.
Anthropic
CEO Dario Amodei looks on after a meeting with French President
Emmanuel Macron during the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 19,
2026.
Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI revealed
late last month that its AI models had hacked into a separate company,
calling it the first known instance of an autonomous AI cyberattack. The
technology had escaped a "sandboxed testing environment" and gained
access to the open internet, OpenAI said in a statement.
The
initial hack disclosed by OpenAI marked the only instance among those
recently reported in which an AI model had slipped out of a closed test
onto the open internet. In each of the others, the model had been
granted internet access either intentionally or inadvertently.
After
escaping onto the internet, the OpenAI model hacked into AI firm
Hugging Face as a potential source of data necessary to complete the
test, OpenAI said.
"If
a company as well secured as Hugging Face -- a Silicon Valley tech
startup that is very AI native -- can’t defend itself against these
models, what about a rural hospital or energy grid that has nowhere near
that level of protection," said Hausenloy, of CAIS.
In a statement at the time, Hugging Face said the incident underscored the need for collaboration to address cyber risks.
"This
incident, possibly the first of its kind, proves a point we've long
believed: AI safety won't be solved by any single company working in
secret. It will be solved in the open, collaboratively, with broad
access to AI for every defender, everywhere," said Clem Delangue, the
co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face.
Within days, rival AI firm Anthropic announced
its models hacked another organization during tests in three separate
cyberattacks that had each gone undetected by the targeted firm. Soon
afterward, the UK-based AI Security Institute (AISI) disclosed the scheme taken up by Anthropic's Mythos 5, as well as a separate hack carried out by OpenAI's GPT-5.6-Sol.
Recent Stories from ABC News
A
day later, Meta revealed that its AI model hacked another company after
being inadvertently granted internet access. Another disclosure came on
Friday, when OpenAI said it would pause some testing of an unreleased
model called Astra, saying internal assessments in recent days had
indicated "significant advancements in agentic coding and
cybersecurity."
"We're
committed to working alongside governments, safety institutes, and
civil society to ensure that the frontier capabilities of models like
Astra, and those that follow, are deployed responsibly and broadly for
the benefit of all humanity," OpenAI said in a blog post.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to a reporter in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, July 29, 2026.
Anna Rose Layden/Reuters
In
a statement to ABC News last week, an Anthropic spokesperson said the
disclosure from AISI "underscores the need for a broader conversation
about how to safely evaluate increasingly capable AI agents."
"As
we shared after disclosing our own incident last week, the field needs
stronger, shared standards for how evaluation environments are built and
secured," the spokesperson added.
In
a statement to ABC News, Meta said its AI cyberattack had taken place
during a test performed by third-party company Irregular.
Recent Stories from ABC News
"A
misconfiguration by Irregular, an independent testing company Meta
uses, inadvertently allowed one of our models access to the internet
during evaluation. The model subsequently exploited a security
vulnerability in a third-party service, in a manner similar to
previously-reported instances with other companies," Meta said.
Irregular also oversaw the tests that involved autonomous AI hacks disclosed by Anthropic and OpenAI.
Irregular issued a post on X last month voicing appreciation for Anthropic's "collaboration and transparency."
Mark Zuckerberg talks about the Orion AR glasses during the Meta Connect conference, Sept. 25, 2024, in Menlo Park, Calif.
Godofredo A. Vasquez/AP
"Addressing
these risks will require closer cooperation across the AI ecosystem. We
as well look forward to working together with Anthropic to advance
security," Irregular added.
In
response to ABC News' request for comment, Irregular's spokesperson
said recently reported incidents reflect "the exact same
evaluation-environment issue that was disclosed by Anthropic over a week
ago."
"There
are no current open issues, and Irregular will publish its findings once
it completes joint investigation in the coming days," the spokesperson
added.
While
acknowledging the risk posed by recent security breaches, some analysts
said the identification of cyber vulnerabilities could help companies
address the problems before a nefarious actor moves to exploit them.
"There
is a silver lining of increased awareness," Oren Etzioni, CEO of Allen
Institute for AI and a computer science professor at the University of
Washington, told ABC news.
Gary
Marcus, a professor emeritus at New York University and author of the
book "Rebooting AI," said mishaps during AI tests raise concerns about
the conduct of private sector firms entrusted with the development of a
powerful technology.
"The
AI industry has built these complicated systems and it doesn't fully
understand them," Marcus said. "The things we're seeing in the lab
eventually are going to happen in the real world if we don't get our act
together."
In
June, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that requests AI
companies share products with the federal government for evaluation
before a wider release.
A
day after OpenAI revealed its first autonomous AI hacks, in July, a
bipartisan pair of U.S. House members introduced the "AI Kill Switch
Act," which would require AI companies to retain the capacity to shut
down or pause their technology. The bill has been referred to the
Committee on Homeland Security.
The challenge of preventing autonomous hacks, Etzioni said, is a "trillion-dollar question."
Still,
he added, U.S.-based AI companies would likely continue to seek
advances in technology as they compete with each other, as well as firms
in China and elsewhere.
"We need to balance the legitimate need to build responsible AI with the legitimate need to win this race," Etzioni added.
