Big Sur local spreads awareness about issues threatening coastal community

Published September 30, 2026

By JOHANNA MELTON

A resident of Big Sur for 35 years, Keep Big Sur Wild co-founder and former captain of the Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade, Marcus Foster found his passion in the protection of the area’s unmarred wildlife, working over the years to extinguish and prevent fires, respond to emergency calls, run a nonprofit and caretake a coastal property.

During his 12 years captaining the Big Sur Fire Brigade, Foster enforced preventative measures including addressing illegal campfires and conducting educational patrols to avoid wildfires. Foster also worked as a first responder, tending to any emergency, whether it be fires, car accidents or cliff rescues.

Marcus Foster fights against local issues such as overtourism, illegal campfires and changes to the Big Sur Land Use Plan. courtesy of MARCUS FOSTER

“[Big Sur] is an extreme place to be a first responder because it’s a fire-prone area,” explains Foster. “It’s very mountainous, and we have to do a lot of trail rescues.”

When the recent Timber Fire started, the former captain and a group of experienced locals worked for 36 hours defending a section of houses. With the help of hoselines and pumps, they kept the flames at bay until large-scale firefighting agencies arrived.

As the fires continued, Foster aided helicopters by supplying them with water from the ponds at Rancho Grande, the property he caretakes and lives at with his family. He managed to provide the helicopters with two million gallons of fresh water, a viable resource for firefighting in Big Sur due to the rugged terrain.

“He’s devoted so much to the community,” says Richard Mole, a longtime friend of Foster. “Whenever we have emergencies like mudslides or roadslides or fires, he’s involved in one way or another.”Shortly after the popularization of social media, the longtime local noticed major changes in tourist behavior. Big Sur, a haven for those wishing to spend time off the grid, became a collection of popular photo-op locations, congested with selfie-takers causing overcrowding, which the area is under-equipped to support.

“Most of my life, people came to Big Sur to escape urban patterns and find an inner passion for nature,” says Foster. “Then it seemed like it became a selfie tourism destination.”

Combating this, Foster co-founded Keep Big Sur Wild, a nonprofit aiming to protect Big Sur’s natural beauty and maintain the language of the Big Sur Land Use Plan, a 45-year-old document holding the intention of protecting the Big Sur coast from development and overuse.

Marcus Foster grew up in Monterey and spent much of his childhood at his uncle’s cabin in Big Sur, sparking a love for the area early on. courtesy of MARCUS FOSTER

“Our board is made up of longtime Big Sur locals who care deeply about Big Sur and are trying to protect it not just for ourselves, but for future generations.” says Foster.

The primary caretaker for Rancho Grande, a 300-acre ranch on the coast of Big Sur, Foster acts as everything from a security guard to a farmer, dedicating much of his time to keeping the ranch up and running.

“He’s what a person should be in a community like this,” says Martha Karstens, former chief of the Big Sur Fire Brigade. “It’s nice when people take an interest in the community that they live in.”

A true jack-of-all-trades, Marcus Foster has dedicated much of his life to maintaining Big Sur, urging people to treat Highway 1 as the scenic experience it was originally meant to be, uphold a “look, don’t touch” mentality when visiting and avoid promoting specific areas on social media, all to prevent Big Sur from being loved to death.

As Foster says, “If there’s any place in the world that shouldn’t change, it’s Big Sur.”