STATE PARKS REOPENS POINT LOBOS AND ANDREW MOLERA
CARMEL >> State Parks announced Tuesday it has reopened Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, Andrew Molera State Park and the Soberanes Canyon Trail at Garrapata State Park.
Lisa Bradford with State Parks said parking is available on a limited basis at the parks and COVID-19 protocols are in place.
“We had the Soberanes Canyon loop hiking trail shut down because of fire danger, just trying to be proactive because we weren’t sure where the Dolan Fire was going to be heading,” she said. “We had the ocean side of Garrapata open for active recreation.”
The Soberanes Fire started near the trail in July 2016 from an illegal wildfire. It partially reopened in April 2018 after trail crews completed repairs.
Bradford said the plan had been to reopen the parks last week but air quality issues due to wildfire smoke led to a delay.
State Parks closed all of its sites in the Big Sur area from Point Lobos south Aug. 19 due to the emergency situation caused by the Dolan Fire and resulting concerns for the safety and health of visitors. The agency closed all of its beaches over Labor Day weekend over COVID-19 concerns.
“The fire was very intense,” Bradford said. “We had a lot of activity as crews were shifting from the River Fire and the (Carmel Fire). We actually had some shifts down to the Big Sur area and we needed to just keep a lot of the State Park units closed for potential incident command use.”
Bradford added State Parks wanted to keep Highway 1 from becoming overloaded by visitors.
Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park remains closed after firefighters took the park over as an incident command center for the Dolan Fire.
Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, John Little State Natural Reserve, Limekiln State Park and Point Sur State Historic Park remain closed. The fire burned into Limekiln and Julia Pfeiffer Burns parks.
“Because Julia Pfeiffer Burns had some burn issues, that is going to be closed until we can do an assessment and make sure stuff is safe,” Bradford said. “Limekiln has the same thing, a lot of fire issues. That one we will probably not reopen for a while.”
Bradford said her understanding is no structures were destroyed at the two parks. Earlier this month, State Parks posted a photo of structures being covered in fire-resistant structure wrap, which looks like aluminum foil. The post said the protection worked to save John Pfeiffer’s homestead cabin at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park in 2008 and 2016.
“They haven’t been able to get completely into Limekiln to do a complete assessment,” Bradford said. “That one was probably the one that bore the brunt of a lot of the burn, not so much at the front part but at the back part of the park.”