The five-day-old Plaskett Fire near Big Sur is now the third-largest active wildfire in California, having grown five-fold since Friday, and it continues burning steep, remote, barely accessible terrain filled with thick vegetation.

The Plaskett Fire, which first erupted last Wednesday about 27 miles south of the still-burning Timber Fire, now stands at 15,479 acres, and it is only 1% contained. As Cal Fire notes, there has been no fire activity in this particular part of the Los Padres National Forest east of the Big Sur coast for 50 years, which means there is plenty of dense fuel to burn.

Evacuation orders along the coast now extend all the way to the San Luis Obispo County border to the south, and to Fort Hunter Liggett to the East, with the US Army training facility currently under an evacuation warning.

"The fire has been pushing toward Highway 1 and moving east into the interior, and there's ongoing concern it could keep spreading south," says Cal Fire in a Monday update. "Crews on the ground are focused on defending structures, building new containment lines, and reinforcing roads, ridgelines, and other natural barriers that can help stop the fire."

A timelapse video seen below shows the smoke plume from the Plaskett Fire as it grew rapidly over three hours on Sunday afternoon.

At around 24 square miles, the Plaskett Fire is now the fifth biggest fire of this fire season in California, and is still only five days old.

The Timber Fire, which began on August 8, continues to burn in the northern part of the Los Padres National Forest, and now stands at 24,970 acres and 21% containment. It is burning in similarly rugged terrain to the east where containment has been challenging.

The Timber Fire's westward and southward advancement toward populated areas along the Big Sur Coast appears to be mostly halted, and the fire, while still threatening hundreds of structures, has mostly been burning in unpopulated areas.

As ABC 7 reported on Friday, historic Big Sur businesses like Nepenthe and Café Kevah have been forced to close again after briefly getting to reopen earlier this month following a forced closure from the Timber Fire.

A 40-mile stretch of Highway 1 is now closed to the public, and Nepenthe owner Kirk Gafill tells ABC 7 that this pair of fires is now reminiscent of the 2008 Basin Complex fire, a merging of three wildfires which eventually burned 162,818 acres, mostly in the Ventana Wilderness, and destroyed 60 structures.

Previously: New Big Sur Wildfire, the Plaskett Fire, Breaks Out South of Timber Fire