CZU Lightning fire fallout: Damage varies widely among parks
Santa Cruz range blazes destroyed some sites, left others unscathed
At the headwaters of Pescadero Creek, the CZU Lighting Complex fires burned to a crisp what once was a sea of conifers along the southern slopes, leaving behind the center poles of tree skeletons and a layer of ash.
Yet just 2 miles away, at the Heritage Grove of oldgrowth redwoods, the forest remains untouched and pristine. The park remains closed to the public, with nearby activity by fire recovery crews.
Fire experts and park rangers are finding much of the region surrounding the Santa Cruz Mountains resembles this matrix: adjoining parks, some scorched, others untouched.
“The fire burned about half of Pescadero Creek” County Park, said Carla Schoof, communications manager for San Mateo County Parks. “The oldgrowth loop? Not burned.”
In the aftermath of the 86,000acre CZU fires, rangers have reopened Portola Redwoods, Butano and Castle Rock state parks, including campgrounds at Portola and Butano.
Yet the nearby Pescadero Creek County Park Complex — which includes Memorial, Sam McDonald and Pescadero Creek county parks — will remain closed, likely into winter, Schoof said. To the south, Big Basin Redwoods State Park — where fires devoured the park’s infrastructure at its headquarters — will remain closed for at least a year, state park officials said.
The campground at Memorial, the parking area at Sam McDonald and the Heritage Grove all emerged unscathed. Regardless, the parks will remain closed due to high activity from fire recovery crews and their industrial vehicles, Schoof said.
As fall takes hold, crews are identifying and removing hazard trees, and locating burnedout root balls that still could be smoldering underground, Schoof said. They also hope to stabilize slopes before winter rains cause erosion and pour ash and silt into Pescadero Creek, a spawning habitat for steelhead trout. The threat of mudslides across the region looms large.
“The biggest concern right now is erosion into Pescadero Creek,” Schoof said. “Heavy rainfall could present us with another battle.”
Throughout the burn area, Schoof said, you can see craters filled with ash. Some fire experts call stump craters the “Venus flytraps” of a fire zone. This is where the stumps of trees burned into their root systems. In some cases, the ash surface can look flat, solid and a safe place to walk. But a hiker trespassing into burn zones could fall through this ash surface into a stump crater and get severely burned by deep, smoldering roots.
San Mateo County Parks Director Nicholas Calderon said there is no projected date to reopen for parks in the Pescadero Creek Complex,
“A wildfire of this magnitude has not occurred in San Mateo County Parks in the 96year history of the department,” he and Schoof said in a posted statement.
Nearby state parks that adjoin the Pescadero Creek Complex are reopening in different stages.
Portola Redwoods was largely untouched. Old Haul Road, a popular mountain bike route that firefighters used as a staging area during the fires, borders and feeds up to Portola Redwoods in one direction and through Pescadero Creek and to Memorial in the other. The road was chewed up by fire machinery, Schoof said, and will need restoration.
At both Portola and Butano, drivein sites for car camping were reopened with conditions, the state Department of Parks and Recreation said. All campsites are available by reservation only, at reservecalifornia. com. In deference to COVID19, group sites remain closed and no groups over 6 to 8 people, depending on the size of the campsite, will be allowed, the park department said.
At Portola, the bridge on the Coyote Ridge Trail was damaged, rangers said, and has been closed. All other trails in the park are open, but routes that connect into adjoining Pescadero Creek Park are off limits.
The CZU Lightning Complex Fires were ignited by lightning in August. Two separate fires, one in Big Basin Redwoods and another on the outskirts of Butano, joined and burned without containment for days.