‘Hopeful for the future’ at Big Basin Redwoods

One year after a massive wildfire devastated California’s oldest state park, Big Basin Redwoods, the cleanup is well underway.

In recent weeks, construction workers in hard hats have finished removing the wreckage of every burned building and charred vehicle in the beloved Santa Cruz Mountains park — from the twisted metal and blackened granite of the park’s 1930s-era headquarters to the broken glass and shattered propane tanks at its popular museum and once-busy campgrounds.

More than 3,300 charred trees, mostly Douglas firs, that were in danger of falling along Big Basin’s winding 6-mile entrance road have been cut down and hauled away. Burned power lines have been taken down, and destroyed wooden bridges replaced.

Nearly every one of Big Basin’s famous old-growth redwood trees, which tower up to 300 feet tall and date back 2,000 years, survived, biologists say, although many have burn scars on their trunks or singed branches that will endure for decades.

“It’s been remarkable how much work has been done in the park. It makes me feel hopeful for the future,” said Chris Spohrer, superintendent for the Santa Cruz District of California State Parks. “Every time I go in, there are more green sprouts.”

Others who have advocated for the park’s recovery agree.

“There’s a lot of sunlight. It’s warmer and drier than it felt previously. But the landscape doesn’t look as wounded as it did. Greenery is everywhere,” said Sara Barth, executive director of the Sempervirens Fund, a Los Altos nonprofit group that has purchased and protected 35,000 acres of redwood forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains since 1900. “It’s surprising how much better it looks with the ruined infrastructure gone. It’s peaceful again. You hear birds. It feels and looks better than it did.”

But it will be a while before visitors are allowed back into the park.

State parks officials have set up a new website to track the rebuilding progress, at reimaginingbigbasin.org.

Spohrer said public meetings to begin planning how the park’s facilities will be rebuilt will start in two or three months. The planning process will take about a year, he said.

After that, it could be another two or three years before the major buildings are rebuilt, he said. At some point along the way, the redwood portion of the park will be partially reopened to the public, perhaps with guided tours.

“After we get the primary access roads safe, the question is how much effort will it take to make the trails safe,” Spohrer said. “I don’t have an estimate.”

Already, crews have removed more than 15,000 trees that had fallen or were in danger of falling around popular areas, including campgrounds and access roads rangers use to access Big Basin’s backcountry. Nearly all of those were Douglas firs, tan oaks, madrones and other trees that aren’t as fire-resistant as redwoods.

Amazingly, some trees are still burning a year after the fire.

For months after the blaze, crews extinguished small fires sparked by winds that stirred the roots of some trees that still glowed redhot. More recently, Spohrer said, embers have been found in the crowns at the tops of old redwoods, still smoldering.

The fire that devastated Big Basin was the worst in the area’s recorded history. Sparked by multiple lightning strikes on Aug. 16, 2020, the blaze, the CZU Lightning Complex Fire, burned 86,509 acres, an area nearly three times the size of the city of San Francisco, in rural Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.

Flames destroyed 1,490 structures, making it the 12th most destructive fire in state history and a disaster that did more damage in Santa Cruz County than the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Overall, 97% of Big Basin’s 18,000 acres burned.

But Big Basin isn’t just any state park. Its landscape of enormous trees, thick ferns, waterfalls, misty forests, ranger talks, scouting jamborees and marshmallow roasts has been central to generations of families since the park was established in 1902. That year San Jose photographer Andrew P. Hill convinced California lawmakers to buy the ancient trees northwest of Boulder Creek because loggers were turning nearby old-growth forests into fence posts and railroad ties.

“These trees, because of their size and antiquity, were among the natural wonders of the world, and should be saved for posterity,” Hill wrote in his memoirs.

Big Basin’s rebuilding after the fire got off to a slow start. But after news coverage and attention from environmental groups and political leaders, Gov. Gavin Newsom included in his revised May budget the entire $186 million that parks officials estimate will be needed to rebuild the park’s campgrounds, visitor center, utilities, bridges, trails and other facilities. The new facilities are not likely to be rebuilt in the same places as the old ones. Stores, parking lots and other buildings were constructed a century ago on top of the root systems of some ancient trees. Rangers who evacuated more than 1,000 visitors during the fire are wary of increased fire risk in the decades to come.

Some new facilities may be built outside the park, perhaps in Saddle Mountain or Little Basin a few miles to the southeast. Buildings will be made of more fireproof materials. An outside parking lot and shuttle bus system may be created for the busiest weekends.

“From our perspective, protecting the redwood forest and the people’s enjoyment of it — those things don’t have to be in conflict,” said Sam Hodder, president of Save the Redwoods League in San Francisco. “There’s an opportunity here for us to find a better balance between the natural ecosystem and the public’s experience.”

Contact Paul Rogers at 408-920-5045.