TIMBER COVE — By early Friday afternoon, Highway 1 leading through Salt Point State Park had taken on an unfamiliar and unsettling silence.
At the height of the summer camping season, one of Sonoma County’s busiest coastal corridors was nearly empty after wildfire evacuation orders forced residents and visitors to leave. Instead of the usual stream of campers, cyclists and sightseers, the only traffic moving through the stretch of scenic highway north of Fort Ross consisted of Cal Fire engines, bulldozers, sheriff’s deputies and utility trucks as crews worked to contain the Woodside Fire, which began Thursday afternoon.
The wildfire had grown to 152 acres late Friday after burning in heavy timber across coastal bluffs and steep ravines west of Highway 1 within Salt Point State Park. Containment stood at 37% after firefighters took advantage of cool overnight conditions Thursday and near-continuous aerial drops since the blaze broke out, according to Cal Fire.
Inside the Sonoma County Department of Emergency Management’s shelter at Laguna High School in Forestville, staff members waited for evacuees who largely never came.
Only two people were using the shelter by late morning, employees said, although an evacuation order remained in effect for the coastal zone SON-1D1, which includes Salt Point State Park and Timber Cove, encompassing about 350 households. An evacuation warning was also still in place Friday afternoon for SON-1D2, which includes 265 households.
The eerie quiet of the evacuation center also played out at shuttered inns, darkened stores and emptied properties across the fire zone.
On the northern end of the closed stretch of Highway 1, at Stewart’s Point, the store that serves as one of the busiest summer stops was missing the crowds that normally arrive in late July.
Stewart’s Point Store is typically thronged by campers, beachgoers and passing motorists. On Friday, it was largely empty. The vintage trolley cart usually piled high with saltwater taffy sat untouched as only a handful of regular customers wandered through the market.
“We’ve got a lot of our regulars that are still coming in, but I’m not going to get the day-trippers, obviously,” said Hilla Ahvenainen, co-owner of the store. “The campers all disappeared, so that part of the business is gone.”
Instead, employees spent much of the day serving coffee to firefighters and answering phone calls from travelers trying to figure out whether Highway 1 was open. To the south of here, it was not.
“I’d say 50% of our calls are that right now,” Ahvenainen said, relieved the store never lost electricity, allowing it to remain open throughout the response.
“I’m just glad the fire is slightly under control,” she said. “That’s the more important thing.”
On the closed segment of Highway 1, stretching down to Timber Cove Road, the landscape had been transformed by the Woodside Fire and all the apparatus brought in to fight it.
Fire engines, bulldozers, sheriff’s vehicles and utility trucks filled the lanes.
Miles of yellow Cal Fire hose stretched alongside the highway as crews worked through steep timber and dense vegetation inside Salt Point State Park.
Driving toward the fire, a haze of milky brown smoke hung over inland valleys before giving way to blue skies closer to the coast. By early afternoon, as coastal gusts approached 25 mph, hot spots began sending fresh columns of gray smoke through blackened Douglas firs, pines and bay laurels.
The pavement itself bore the marks of the firefight. Bulldozer tracks crossed Highway 1 where heavy equipment had moved into the forest to build and strengthen containment lines. The smell of diesel exhaust from engines and heavy equipment swirled with smoke from scorched timber.
At Ocean Cove Campground, a private operation on the fire’s southern flank, tents remained abandoned in campsites while camper vans and vehicles sat where visitors had left them. Half-eaten meals still rested on picnic tables as flies buzzed around food abandoned when campers were ordered to leave.
The gulls that normally gather around the bluff-top campground were largely gone, perhaps wanting to escape the smoke.
The stillness extended farther south at the Timber Cove Resort, a landmark Sonoma Coast destination.
The 46-room resort, typically bustling with summer visitors, sat almost entirely empty Friday afternoon except for groundskeeper Ed Lofkesnes, who had returned to check on the property after evacuating the night before.
The resort had been preparing to host a wedding Friday before Sheriff’s Office orders led guests to leave.
“We were pretty busy yesterday,” Lofkesnes said. “We were getting ready for a big wedding today, but we’re still hashing out what’s going to happen because obviously there’s an evacuation and we have no power.”
Lofkesnes said he returned early Friday to make sure the resort’s generator was still powering a walk-in freezer. He evacuated from his home in the Seaview area Thursday night but said he was staying with family north of the fire in Stewart’s Point.
The Woodside Fire burns at Salt Point State Park, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat)
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The Woodside Fire burns at Salt Point State Park, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat)
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Nearby, Caltrans highway inspector Richard Jones spent the afternoon documenting burned guardrail posts and other roadside infrastructure damaged by the blaze. The two men stood discussing the fire in the vacant lot of the resort, speculating about the direction and wind speed.
“Over there you can see that bird up in the sky just floating in the wind,” Jones observed, pointing to an osprey suspended in flight, floating on the coastal gusts. “He wasn’t able to do that just a little while ago so the wind’s probably picking up.”
A few miles away, more than 320 personnel were battling a wildfire that officials hoped would not jump the highway, as it had Thursday night. Crews were focused on extinguishing heavy-burning timber, strengthening containment lines and monitoring inaccessible areas as winds increased through the afternoon.
“The biggest worry is when the coastal winds come in, what are they going to do?” said Tyree Zander, spokesman for Cal Fire’s Lake-Napa Unit. “We’re focused on making sure things remain contained and that nothing hops over line.”
Staff Writer Alana Minkler contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Isabel Beer at isabel.beer@pressdemocrat.com.