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Wildfires in Big Basin Redwoods State Park

184 points by moultano 6y ago

michaeltoth 6y ago
I just moved to the Bay Area and visited Big Basin for the first time two weekends ago. I had never seen trees that large in my life. I'm grateful that I took the opportunity to go and see it when I did. It's crazy to think that less than two weeks later there is so much destruction there.
option 6y ago
We know that many man-made structures did burn down but the real treasure is redwood trees. And redwood trees can survive fires as part of their natural life. So let’s hope for the best and better protect this magnificent place in the future.
ekianjo 6y ago
> Wildfires are often the tragic manifestation of our global climate crisis. Oops, the first line is some unsupported statement.
- rrss 6y ago
  were you able to make it to the second sentence? > While we cannot be certain that is the case here, it seems likely that this global crisis has struck close to home.
eucryphia 6y ago
Maybe prescribed burns once every 500 years isn't enough http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/california-maybe-prescribed-burns-once-every-500-years-are-not-enough/ http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/california-maybe-prescribed... There is a big difference between 'burning off' a couple of hundred acres and 'landscape scale fuel reduction', many reports conflate the two. Burning off 800 acres makes no difference when the surrounding 100,000 acres has high unmanaged forest fuel loads.
bradlys 6y ago
Is there any reason to believe this will inspire change? My significant other is devastated as much of her childhood was spent in big basin. > In rebuilding Big Basin, we hope it is a catalyst for a new movement, one in which we learn to coexist with wildfire and deal directly with the impacts of climate change. The only way I can see us changing the severity of damage is by incorporating fire breaks regularly - but those seem radically unpopular (as evidence by the lack of them in all of California). Maybe more funding for firefighting but I guess that's probably unpopular too... I guess you would have to raise your property taxes.
- option 6y ago
  where do our current taxes go? CA as a state has one of the highest (or the highest?) tax burden in US. The schools are still awful and we have to rely on prison populations for fire fighting? WTF?
  - epistasis 6y ago
    Property tax burden is super low for the longtime wealthy. If you were wealthy in CA > 25 years ago, you're likely not paying much at all in taxes. We instead rely on high sales tax and income tax.
    - option 6y ago
      you still are paying ungodly income and sale taxes. If you own property and don’t pay (or pay very few) income taxes that means you probably wouldn’t be able to keep your house if your property tax base is reset.
      - jdietrich 6y ago
        Sales tax (VAT) in most European countries is around 20%. The top rate of income tax is typically 50% or more. That's just what it costs to have decent public services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax#VAT_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax...
cameldrv 6y ago
The structures are gone, but some of the trees are 1800 years old. They didn't get that old by not being able to survive a fire. It's important to accept that fire is a natural part of the ecological cycle in much of California, in fact, aggressive suppression has disrupted the natural cycle and led to more extreme fires.
- mikeyouse 6y ago
  This is likely true but modern fires are burning much hotter than historical ones due to the accumulation of brush... it's entirely possible some of them that survived 1000+ years were killed by this latest one.
  - 01100011 6y ago
    You think that at no time in the last 1000+ years there was a time when brush built up to the levels seen today?
    - wyattpeak 6y ago
      Very possibly not. Brush builds up because we suppress fires, the ecosystem is in a fundamentally different state than it has been for most of the last millennium.
    - pacificmint 6y ago
      Generally the idea is that historically there were frequent fires which kept the available fuel to a lower level. Humans started fighting wildfires, and for decades we were pretty successful. That resulted in more fuel buildup then happened historically. When those fire finally burn, they often burn hot enough to destroy trees that used to survive the fires. I don’t know what the fuel levels were in this area specifically, but yes, it seems plausible that the brush might not have built up to today’s levels before.
      - stickfigure 6y ago
        All that is true, but we humans also tend to cause fires more frequently too? I live in a fire zone (I'm writing this from a hotel room that I've been forcibly evacuated to) and while Lightning gets the blame this time (I'm sure PG&E execs are quietly sighing relief), it doesn't seem to be the cause most times. I wonder what the quantifiable overall effect is.
01100011 6y ago
> Wildfires are often the tragic manifestation of our global climate crisis. This was a naturally caused fire in an area where fire is an accepted part of the ecosystem. The buildings were not natural and were removed just like non-native grasses and other species which interfere with the California native species. It sucks, I get it. Many places I've known and loved have been changed by fire, but they come back stronger when the burns are not too frequent which they often are when caused by man. Anthropogenic global warming is settled science, but at the same time so is the history of climatic variation in California. CA has long periods of dryness, which is why the native plants are so specialized in dealing with it. I feel for the people affected by the fires and hope they and their belongings remain safe, but let us not forget the long history of fires in CA and the destruction they cause when not planned for. CA is a state of change, and the storms, earthquakes, fires and other natural disasters have and will continue to cause problems. Plans can not save everyone, but plans should be made. Events like this should be kept in the proper perspective so as to educate the public and build awareness which can lead to preservation of lives down the road.
- mflamespin 6y ago
  I'm curious why this is getting downvoted.
  - dave5104 6y ago
    Because calling it a "naturally caused" wildfire is technically true, but only really if you don't believe global climate change causes extreme weather events. Two sentences past what OP quoted: > This past weekend’s extraordinary weather event, with thousands of lightning strikes, wreaked havoc and destruction on California’s forests and communities and choked our air. Lightning storms on the magnitude seen in the Bay Area this past weekend are unheard of--which caused the many fires you may be hearing about.
    - 01100011 6y ago
      One storm does not make a trend. Tropical moisture often makes its way to the California coast in late summer. AGW may increase these events, but it is irresponsible journalism to try to pin this atmospheric event, and the resulting storms, on AGW.
OneLeggedCat 6y ago
"Gone" is a clear and strong word, and it is misapplied here, unless the author is omniscient. Fires hot enough to burn these buildings down may still be a cool enough fire to be natural and healthy in this case. Or maybe not. As the article states, no one has even checked the trees yet, and they are what matter here. If it is an average wildfire, of average hotness, then the trees (and forest generally) are fine.
- 0xffff2 6y ago
  "As we know it" is just as important as "gone" in the title. Even if every single tree survived (almost certainly not the case), the park will not be the same for many years to come, and the loss of the historic CCC buildings would be devastating all on its own.
m463 6y ago
I don't know the specifics of this fire, but I think the sequoias themselves are pretty resistant to fire, and even require fire to germinate their seeds.
- amluto 6y ago
  I don’t know about sequoias, but the closely related coast redwood can and does produce seedlings without any fire.
  - m463 6y ago
    Wow, I had to stop and look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum So sequoia sempervirens aka coast redwood/california redwood is the tallest tree on earth. And the sequioadendron giganteum aka giant sequoias are not that tall, but are lots fatter.
hirundo 6y ago
I used to live just down the road in Boulder Creek and hiked in Big Basin routinely for years, including hundreds of hours training for the PCT. I really love that place, and hope the damage isn't as apocalyptic as the headline suggests. There have always been big burn areas at least since I started visiting in the nineties. It's an ecosystem built to survive and thrive with fire, if it's not too much of a good thing. I still have family there, I'll be calling for an update soon. My last visit was a few thanksgivings ago. I took an early morning hike before the feast, and on my way out passed a flock of wild turkeys. They were lucky I didn't have a flintlock blunderbuss with me. I hope they made it through the fire ok.
dkislyuk 6y ago
Another somber event for Bay Area residents. For trail runners and hikers, the Skyline to Sea trail is an absolute gem. Hoping that some of the old-growth trees make it through.
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  Did Skyline to the Sea with my daughter a few years back. Split across two days, it was our first overnight hike where we carried tent, bags, cookware.... I suspect it will be back by the time she has kids of her own.
soledades 6y ago
This passage from Against the Grain makes for interesting reading right now: The case for the use of fire being the decisive transformation in the fortunes of hominids is convincing. It has been mankind’s oldest and greatest tool for reshaping the natural world. “Tool,” however, is not quite the right word; unlike an inanimate knife, fire has a life of its own. It is, at best, a “semidomesticate,” appearing unbidden and, if not guarded carefully, escaping its shackles to become dangerously feral. Hominids’ use of fire is historically deep and pervasive. Evidence for human fires is at least 400,000 years old, long before our species appeared on the scene. Thanks to hominids, much of the world’s flora and fauna consist of fire-adapted species (pyrophytes) that have been encouraged by burning. The effects of anthropogenic fire are so massive that they might be judged, in an evenhanded account of the human impact on the natural world, to overwhelm crop and livestock domestications. Why human fire as landscape architect doesn’t register as it ought to in our historical accounts is perhaps that its effects were spread over hundreds of millennia and were accomplished by “precivilized” peoples also known as “savages.” In our age of dynamite and bulldozers, it was a very slow-motion sort of environmental landscaping. But its aggregate effects were momentous. Our ancestors could not have failed to notice how natural wildfires transformed the landscape: how they cleared old vegetation and encouraged a host of quick-colonizing grasses and shrubs, many bearing desired seeds, berries, fruits, and nuts. They could also not have failed to notice that a fire drove fleeing game from its path, exposed hidden burrows and nests of small game, and, most important, later stimulated the browse and mushrooms that attracted grazing prey. Native North Americans deployed fire to sculpt landscapes favored by elk, deer, beaver, hare, porcupine, ruffed grouse, turkey, and quail, all of which they hunted. The game they subsequently bagged represented a kind of harvesting of prey animals they had deliberately assembled by carefully creating a habitat they would find enticing. Quite apart from being the designers of hunting grounds—veritable game parks—early humans used fire to hunt large game. The evidence suggests that long before the bow and arrow appeared, roughly twenty thousand years ago, hominids were using fire to drive herd animals off precipices and to drive elephants into bogs where, immobilized, they could more easily be killed. Fire was the key to humankind’s growing sway over the natural world— a species monopoly and trump card, worldwide. The Amazonian rain forest bears indelible traces of the use of fire to clear land and open the canopy; Australia’s eucalyptus landscape is, to a considerable degree, the effect of human fire. The volume of such landscaping in North America was such that when it stopped abruptly, due to the devastating epidemics that came with the European, the newly unchecked growth of forest cover created the illusion among white settlers that North America was a virtually untouched, primeval forest. According to some climatologists, the cold spell known as the Little Ice Age, from roughly 1500 to 1850, may well have been due to the reduction of CO2—a greenhouse gas—brought about by the die-off of North America’s indigenous fire farmers. Scott, James C.. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (p. 37-39). Yale University Press.
pfarnsworth 6y ago
It's a terrible tragedy, but forests recover very quickly after forest fires. Although we as humans hate seeing such beautiful places get destroyed, it's a perfectly natural part of history and without these types of fires, we don't get a proper cycle of nature.
- jdkee 6y ago
  Define “very quickly” for trees that grow for 1000 years.
- 0xffff2 6y ago
  This is simply not true anymore. Modern fires are far hotter thanks to the accumulation of decades of brush as we've refused to do prescribed burns. Modern fires destroy forests. There's nothing natural about them.
  - pfarnsworth 6y ago
    No, this is simply not true. There's nothing special about these "modern" fires. Some people like to think that it's different because we're around to see things, but we're not. 1000 year old trees are nothing compared to geological age. Most importantly, you have no idea how hot "ancient" fires burned so how could you possibly compare them to today? If you're expecting that within a couple of years there's no new growth in Big Basin, and that it will remain some sort of dead desert, then you're sorely mistaken.
- thaumaturgy 6y ago
  https://imgur.com/exSaGup https://imgur.com/exSaGup I took this photo not long ago (in Oregon, not California). The burn scars in the background were burned in 2002 and 2003 (https://imgur.com/wBQhXn3 https://imgur.com/wBQhXn3). The tree canopies that were there, that now remain only as burnt, denuded toothpicks in the landscape, have been replaced by chapparal, which will burn again just as hotly. In the intervening almost 20 years, there's nothing growing more than a few feet above the ground and there's still a lot of barren earth. Many species do benefit from wildfires of a particular intensity. The megafires that we are seeing today are so hot, so big, and so intense, that no species are benefiting from them. These fires are simply destructive. There is no magical renewal afterward. For these burn areas -- and there are more and more appearing around the western states now -- life creeps back in, slowly, from the edges, and when you're talking about 50,000 acres of destruction, that takes a very long time. I don't want to be frustrated at you specifically, but comments like this one keep getting repeated by people that heard it somewhere once. Our forest management practices must change immediately, and the common belief that all wildfire is totally natural and totally good for the ecology is preventing the critical mass of public support required to make that change happen.
anonunivgrad 6y ago
>Wildfires are often the tragic manifestation of our global climate crisis. While we cannot be certain that is the case here, it seems likely that this global crisis has struck close to home. Leading with political outrage and then immediately admitting there’s no basis to think so. Forest fires came long before people and will continue long after we are gone. It’s bad writing and basically propaganda to lead every article about natural events with some bit about climate change. You can’t link individual events to climate change. You might as well lead every article about a fire, flood, or hurricane with some pearl clutching about climate change. And anyway, the evidence is that well-meaning human attempts to control wildfires are driving the growth in severe wildfire, due to the accumulation of brush that naturally would burn off in small fires without human intervention. This is discussed extensively elsewhere in this thread.
- rconti 6y ago
  I don't how you go from "we cannot be certain" to "no basis to think so".
benatkin 6y ago
That really bums me out. I found out while living in the Bay Area that 5 days of smoky skies a year really bother me despite the outdoors being so enjoyable the other 360 days of the year and that's part of why I moved from SF to Miami in 2018. Part of it is that when I reflected on it I just felt worse about it because I thought about the cumulative effect of all the fires. I miss the Bay Area and might move back but I'm glad to not have to deal with smoke in the meantime.
baron816 6y ago
A fire there was inevitable. Anyone who’s visited would’ve noticed that many of the trees were charred from previous fires. For people who have never lived in or visited Silicon Valley, you should know that the parks in the area are one of the best parts around here (probably tied for first with the great weather). Big Basin has the biggest trees in the area, but other than that, it can be a little underwhelming. There are a lot of other really awesome parks and preserves (Castle Rock, Portola, Russian Ridge, Skyline Ridge, Monte Bello, Wunderlich, just to name a few) within a 30 minute drive of Palo Alto. I had been trying to go to as many as I could the last few months, but barely scratched the surface. Any of the ones I visited were better than and park I had gone to before moving out here.
- genocidicbunny 6y ago
  It definitely sucks that so many of the great parks have been affected. September and October are pretty great for hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and this will certainly put a damper on it. I'm a little worried about what's going to happen come winter rains. With so many hillsides laid bare, there are going to be way more landslides whenever heavy rains hit, so a lot more areas than usual are probably going to get washed out.
gratalis 6y ago
German Public Broadcasting (Deutsche Welle) just published this timely and well rounded two-part overview and analysis of wildfire causes and mitigation. part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUo2Vs6id7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUo2Vs6id7w part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPWq8LVDtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPWq8LVDtk
hakcermani 6y ago
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/20/exclusive-look-first-view-inside-what-is-left-of-big-basin-state-park-in-the-heart-of-california-wildfires/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/20/exclusive-look-first-... Hope the trees or at least most of them survive. Its a special place in the South Bay. Bldgs can be rebuilt. I guess trees will grow back too, but there is a sadness in loosing these ancient trees :( They were witness to the rise of our recent society ... Had a chance to bike to the park in May. It was shut due to Covid .. already eerie and quiet and amazing. Just one Ranger and a Sherrif watching the place. They were kind enough to let me get a pic in front of the huge Redwood cross section hanging there at park HQ ... Have to go back again when things clear ...
- caturopath 6y ago
  These trees have made it through fires before and many of them will make it through again. The forest is a living thing, and this destruction is part of it. I haven't been to Big Basin since the winter because of COVID -- it was closed for a while, then limited parking, and I just stayed closer to home. I hope I didn't miss a last chance at seeing some of my favorite nooks intact.
DTrejo 6y ago
We need some goats to eat all the fuel while it's still growing. Herbivores will also trample dead plants to the ground so grass can grow. Apparently there's too much work for the herders, based on articles published after the last round of fires. Further reading: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/30/goats-sheep-and-cattle-solve-californias-wildfire-grazing-newsom/3308263002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/30/goats-... https://www.google.com/search?q=california+goat+herders&oq=california+goat+herders https://www.google.com/search?q=california+goat+herders&oq=c... https://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_gill_it_s_not_the_cow_it_s_the_how https://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_gill_it_s_not_the_cow_it_s_t... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yiclBCxMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yiclBCxMo
caturopath 6y ago
I love Big Basin. It is one of my favorite places in the world. The meteor trail is the prettiest trail I've found of the hundreds or thousands I've hiked in the Bay outside of the South Bay / Peninsula. The Berry Falls loops is magnificent - I love the sudden, dramatic change of ecosystem even more than the awesome falls. People have been reaching out to me about the fires. I understand why we mourn, but why do we think this is a bad thing? Fires are part of the forest. Humans have done harm here, both from preventing past fires (which make the smaller number of fires worse) and potentially from climate change (I don't know enough to know how strong the connection of global climate change to this sort of event is), but the basics of it seem clear: forests catch fire sometimes. Such natural phenomena are what gave us the forests we have today.
therockspush 6y ago
This one hurts. I've put in a lot of hours up there camping and hiking. I was just talking with someone about how you used to be able to go up there on a whim and snag a last minute campsite. Even if it was next to some jackass running his TV and microwave it was still fun. Any area you go into up there shows the fire damage those trees have survived over the years. I'll miss the old-timey HQ cabin and cafe but I'm counting on a good recovery here.
myrandomcomment 6y ago
I live on the mountain above Los Gatos on the border with Santa Cruz. Yesterday everything smelled of smoke, and the outside was covered in white ash. Today no smoke smell and blue sky as the wind is blowing away from me towards the fire. Better right, but...the area next to me just went red with evacuation orders, and we are next. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f0121f7f2f0941afb3ed70529b2cee75 https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f0121f7f2f0941afb3ed705... We just packed up the important stuff and have it waiting in piles near the door. It is interesting what you think about taking. Clothing for everyone, meds, etc. The FreeNAS box with all the photos and like. The wedding album. The flag from my grandfathers coffin. Books and photos from family that are now 100+ years old. A painting that hung over my grandparents sofa, and then my parents and now mine. My daughter packed a stuffed animal I gave her when she was 6. There are a ton of very expenses items that do not make the cut. It’s the things that drive happy memories but are of little monetary value that do. A lesson in perspective I guess.

184 points by moultano 6y ago

I just moved to the Bay Area and visited Big Basin for the first time two weekends ago. I had never seen trees that large in my life. I'm grateful that I took the opportunity to go and see it when I did. It's crazy to think that less than two weeks later there is so much destruction there.

option 6y ago

We know that many man-made structures did burn down but the real treasure is redwood trees. And redwood trees can survive fires as part of their natural life. So let’s hope for the best and better protect this magnificent place in the future.

ekianjo 6y ago

> Wildfires are often the tragic manifestation of our global climate crisis. Oops, the first line is some unsupported statement.

rrss 6y ago
were you able to make it to the second sentence? > While we cannot be certain that is the case here, it seems likely that this global crisis has struck close to home.

eucryphia 6y ago

Maybe prescribed burns once every 500 years isn't enough http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/california-maybe-prescribed-burns-once-every-500-years-are-not-enough/ http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/california-maybe-prescribed... There is a big difference between 'burning off' a couple of hundred acres and 'landscape scale fuel reduction', many reports conflate the two. Burning off 800 acres makes no difference when the surrounding 100,000 acres has high unmanaged forest fuel loads.

bradlys 6y ago

Is there any reason to believe this will inspire change? My significant other is devastated as much of her childhood was spent in big basin. > In rebuilding Big Basin, we hope it is a catalyst for a new movement, one in which we learn to coexist with wildfire and deal directly with the impacts of climate change. The only way I can see us changing the severity of damage is by incorporating fire breaks regularly - but those seem radically unpopular (as evidence by the lack of them in all of California). Maybe more funding for firefighting but I guess that's probably unpopular too... I guess you would have to raise your property taxes.

option 6y ago
where do our current taxes go? CA as a state has one of the highest (or the highest?) tax burden in US. The schools are still awful and we have to rely on prison populations for fire fighting? WTF?
- epistasis 6y ago
  Property tax burden is super low for the longtime wealthy. If you were wealthy in CA > 25 years ago, you're likely not paying much at all in taxes. We instead rely on high sales tax and income tax.
  - option 6y ago
    you still are paying ungodly income and sale taxes. If you own property and don’t pay (or pay very few) income taxes that means you probably wouldn’t be able to keep your house if your property tax base is reset.
    - jdietrich 6y ago
      Sales tax (VAT) in most European countries is around 20%. The top rate of income tax is typically 50% or more. That's just what it costs to have decent public services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax#VAT_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax...

cameldrv 6y ago

The structures are gone, but some of the trees are 1800 years old. They didn't get that old by not being able to survive a fire. It's important to accept that fire is a natural part of the ecological cycle in much of California, in fact, aggressive suppression has disrupted the natural cycle and led to more extreme fires.

mikeyouse 6y ago
This is likely true but modern fires are burning much hotter than historical ones due to the accumulation of brush... it's entirely possible some of them that survived 1000+ years were killed by this latest one.
- 01100011 6y ago
  You think that at no time in the last 1000+ years there was a time when brush built up to the levels seen today?
  - wyattpeak 6y ago
    Very possibly not. Brush builds up because we suppress fires, the ecosystem is in a fundamentally different state than it has been for most of the last millennium.
  - pacificmint 6y ago
    Generally the idea is that historically there were frequent fires which kept the available fuel to a lower level. Humans started fighting wildfires, and for decades we were pretty successful. That resulted in more fuel buildup then happened historically. When those fire finally burn, they often burn hot enough to destroy trees that used to survive the fires. I don’t know what the fuel levels were in this area specifically, but yes, it seems plausible that the brush might not have built up to today’s levels before.
    - stickfigure 6y ago
      All that is true, but we humans also tend to cause fires more frequently too? I live in a fire zone (I'm writing this from a hotel room that I've been forcibly evacuated to) and while Lightning gets the blame this time (I'm sure PG&E execs are quietly sighing relief), it doesn't seem to be the cause most times. I wonder what the quantifiable overall effect is.

01100011 6y ago

> Wildfires are often the tragic manifestation of our global climate crisis. This was a naturally caused fire in an area where fire is an accepted part of the ecosystem. The buildings were not natural and were removed just like non-native grasses and other species which interfere with the California native species. It sucks, I get it. Many places I've known and loved have been changed by fire, but they come back stronger when the burns are not too frequent which they often are when caused by man. Anthropogenic global warming is settled science, but at the same time so is the history of climatic variation in California. CA has long periods of dryness, which is why the native plants are so specialized in dealing with it. I feel for the people affected by the fires and hope they and their belongings remain safe, but let us not forget the long history of fires in CA and the destruction they cause when not planned for. CA is a state of change, and the storms, earthquakes, fires and other natural disasters have and will continue to cause problems. Plans can not save everyone, but plans should be made. Events like this should be kept in the proper perspective so as to educate the public and build awareness which can lead to preservation of lives down the road.

mflamespin 6y ago
I'm curious why this is getting downvoted.
- dave5104 6y ago
  Because calling it a "naturally caused" wildfire is technically true, but only really if you don't believe global climate change causes extreme weather events. Two sentences past what OP quoted: > This past weekend’s extraordinary weather event, with thousands of lightning strikes, wreaked havoc and destruction on California’s forests and communities and choked our air. Lightning storms on the magnitude seen in the Bay Area this past weekend are unheard of--which caused the many fires you may be hearing about.
  - 01100011 6y ago
    One storm does not make a trend. Tropical moisture often makes its way to the California coast in late summer. AGW may increase these events, but it is irresponsible journalism to try to pin this atmospheric event, and the resulting storms, on AGW.

OneLeggedCat 6y ago

"Gone" is a clear and strong word, and it is misapplied here, unless the author is omniscient. Fires hot enough to burn these buildings down may still be a cool enough fire to be natural and healthy in this case. Or maybe not. As the article states, no one has even checked the trees yet, and they are what matter here. If it is an average wildfire, of average hotness, then the trees (and forest generally) are fine.

0xffff2 6y ago
"As we know it" is just as important as "gone" in the title. Even if every single tree survived (almost certainly not the case), the park will not be the same for many years to come, and the loss of the historic CCC buildings would be devastating all on its own.

m463 6y ago

I don't know the specifics of this fire, but I think the sequoias themselves are pretty resistant to fire, and even require fire to germinate their seeds.

amluto 6y ago
I don’t know about sequoias, but the closely related coast redwood can and does produce seedlings without any fire.
- m463 6y ago
  Wow, I had to stop and look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum So sequoia sempervirens aka coast redwood/california redwood is the tallest tree on earth. And the sequioadendron giganteum aka giant sequoias are not that tall, but are lots fatter.

hirundo 6y ago

I used to live just down the road in Boulder Creek and hiked in Big Basin routinely for years, including hundreds of hours training for the PCT. I really love that place, and hope the damage isn't as apocalyptic as the headline suggests. There have always been big burn areas at least since I started visiting in the nineties. It's an ecosystem built to survive and thrive with fire, if it's not too much of a good thing. I still have family there, I'll be calling for an update soon. My last visit was a few thanksgivings ago. I took an early morning hike before the feast, and on my way out passed a flock of wild turkeys. They were lucky I didn't have a flintlock blunderbuss with me. I hope they made it through the fire ok.

dkislyuk 6y ago

Another somber event for Bay Area residents. For trail runners and hikers, the Skyline to Sea trail is an absolute gem. Hoping that some of the old-growth trees make it through.

JKCalhoun 6y ago
Did Skyline to the Sea with my daughter a few years back. Split across two days, it was our first overnight hike where we carried tent, bags, cookware.... I suspect it will be back by the time she has kids of her own.

soledades 6y ago

This passage from Against the Grain makes for interesting reading right now: The case for the use of fire being the decisive transformation in the fortunes of hominids is convincing. It has been mankind’s oldest and greatest tool for reshaping the natural world. “Tool,” however, is not quite the right word; unlike an inanimate knife, fire has a life of its own. It is, at best, a “semidomesticate,” appearing unbidden and, if not guarded carefully, escaping its shackles to become dangerously feral. Hominids’ use of fire is historically deep and pervasive. Evidence for human fires is at least 400,000 years old, long before our species appeared on the scene. Thanks to hominids, much of the world’s flora and fauna consist of fire-adapted species (pyrophytes) that have been encouraged by burning. The effects of anthropogenic fire are so massive that they might be judged, in an evenhanded account of the human impact on the natural world, to overwhelm crop and livestock domestications. Why human fire as landscape architect doesn’t register as it ought to in our historical accounts is perhaps that its effects were spread over hundreds of millennia and were accomplished by “precivilized” peoples also known as “savages.” In our age of dynamite and bulldozers, it was a very slow-motion sort of environmental landscaping. But its aggregate effects were momentous. Our ancestors could not have failed to notice how natural wildfires transformed the landscape: how they cleared old vegetation and encouraged a host of quick-colonizing grasses and shrubs, many bearing desired seeds, berries, fruits, and nuts. They could also not have failed to notice that a fire drove fleeing game from its path, exposed hidden burrows and nests of small game, and, most important, later stimulated the browse and mushrooms that attracted grazing prey. Native North Americans deployed fire to sculpt landscapes favored by elk, deer, beaver, hare, porcupine, ruffed grouse, turkey, and quail, all of which they hunted. The game they subsequently bagged represented a kind of harvesting of prey animals they had deliberately assembled by carefully creating a habitat they would find enticing. Quite apart from being the designers of hunting grounds—veritable game parks—early humans used fire to hunt large game. The evidence suggests that long before the bow and arrow appeared, roughly twenty thousand years ago, hominids were using fire to drive herd animals off precipices and to drive elephants into bogs where, immobilized, they could more easily be killed. Fire was the key to humankind’s growing sway over the natural world— a species monopoly and trump card, worldwide. The Amazonian rain forest bears indelible traces of the use of fire to clear land and open the canopy; Australia’s eucalyptus landscape is, to a considerable degree, the effect of human fire. The volume of such landscaping in North America was such that when it stopped abruptly, due to the devastating epidemics that came with the European, the newly unchecked growth of forest cover created the illusion among white settlers that North America was a virtually untouched, primeval forest. According to some climatologists, the cold spell known as the Little Ice Age, from roughly 1500 to 1850, may well have been due to the reduction of CO2—a greenhouse gas—brought about by the die-off of North America’s indigenous fire farmers. Scott, James C.. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (p. 37-39). Yale University Press.

pfarnsworth 6y ago

It's a terrible tragedy, but forests recover very quickly after forest fires. Although we as humans hate seeing such beautiful places get destroyed, it's a perfectly natural part of history and without these types of fires, we don't get a proper cycle of nature.

jdkee 6y ago
Define “very quickly” for trees that grow for 1000 years.
0xffff2 6y ago
This is simply not true anymore. Modern fires are far hotter thanks to the accumulation of decades of brush as we've refused to do prescribed burns. Modern fires destroy forests. There's nothing natural about them.
- pfarnsworth 6y ago
  No, this is simply not true. There's nothing special about these "modern" fires. Some people like to think that it's different because we're around to see things, but we're not. 1000 year old trees are nothing compared to geological age. Most importantly, you have no idea how hot "ancient" fires burned so how could you possibly compare them to today? If you're expecting that within a couple of years there's no new growth in Big Basin, and that it will remain some sort of dead desert, then you're sorely mistaken.
thaumaturgy 6y ago
https://imgur.com/exSaGup https://imgur.com/exSaGup I took this photo not long ago (in Oregon, not California). The burn scars in the background were burned in 2002 and 2003 (https://imgur.com/wBQhXn3 https://imgur.com/wBQhXn3). The tree canopies that were there, that now remain only as burnt, denuded toothpicks in the landscape, have been replaced by chapparal, which will burn again just as hotly. In the intervening almost 20 years, there's nothing growing more than a few feet above the ground and there's still a lot of barren earth. Many species do benefit from wildfires of a particular intensity. The megafires that we are seeing today are so hot, so big, and so intense, that no species are benefiting from them. These fires are simply destructive. There is no magical renewal afterward. For these burn areas -- and there are more and more appearing around the western states now -- life creeps back in, slowly, from the edges, and when you're talking about 50,000 acres of destruction, that takes a very long time. I don't want to be frustrated at you specifically, but comments like this one keep getting repeated by people that heard it somewhere once. Our forest management practices must change immediately, and the common belief that all wildfire is totally natural and totally good for the ecology is preventing the critical mass of public support required to make that change happen.

anonunivgrad 6y ago

>Wildfires are often the tragic manifestation of our global climate crisis. While we cannot be certain that is the case here, it seems likely that this global crisis has struck close to home. Leading with political outrage and then immediately admitting there’s no basis to think so. Forest fires came long before people and will continue long after we are gone. It’s bad writing and basically propaganda to lead every article about natural events with some bit about climate change. You can’t link individual events to climate change. You might as well lead every article about a fire, flood, or hurricane with some pearl clutching about climate change. And anyway, the evidence is that well-meaning human attempts to control wildfires are driving the growth in severe wildfire, due to the accumulation of brush that naturally would burn off in small fires without human intervention. This is discussed extensively elsewhere in this thread.

rconti 6y ago
I don't how you go from "we cannot be certain" to "no basis to think so".

benatkin 6y ago

That really bums me out. I found out while living in the Bay Area that 5 days of smoky skies a year really bother me despite the outdoors being so enjoyable the other 360 days of the year and that's part of why I moved from SF to Miami in 2018. Part of it is that when I reflected on it I just felt worse about it because I thought about the cumulative effect of all the fires. I miss the Bay Area and might move back but I'm glad to not have to deal with smoke in the meantime.

baron816 6y ago

A fire there was inevitable. Anyone who’s visited would’ve noticed that many of the trees were charred from previous fires. For people who have never lived in or visited Silicon Valley, you should know that the parks in the area are one of the best parts around here (probably tied for first with the great weather). Big Basin has the biggest trees in the area, but other than that, it can be a little underwhelming. There are a lot of other really awesome parks and preserves (Castle Rock, Portola, Russian Ridge, Skyline Ridge, Monte Bello, Wunderlich, just to name a few) within a 30 minute drive of Palo Alto. I had been trying to go to as many as I could the last few months, but barely scratched the surface. Any of the ones I visited were better than and park I had gone to before moving out here.

genocidicbunny 6y ago
It definitely sucks that so many of the great parks have been affected. September and October are pretty great for hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and this will certainly put a damper on it. I'm a little worried about what's going to happen come winter rains. With so many hillsides laid bare, there are going to be way more landslides whenever heavy rains hit, so a lot more areas than usual are probably going to get washed out.

gratalis 6y ago

German Public Broadcasting (Deutsche Welle) just published this timely and well rounded two-part overview and analysis of wildfire causes and mitigation. part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUo2Vs6id7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUo2Vs6id7w part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPWq8LVDtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPWq8LVDtk

hakcermani 6y ago

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/20/exclusive-look-first-view-inside-what-is-left-of-big-basin-state-park-in-the-heart-of-california-wildfires/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/20/exclusive-look-first-... Hope the trees or at least most of them survive. Its a special place in the South Bay. Bldgs can be rebuilt. I guess trees will grow back too, but there is a sadness in loosing these ancient trees :( They were witness to the rise of our recent society ... Had a chance to bike to the park in May. It was shut due to Covid .. already eerie and quiet and amazing. Just one Ranger and a Sherrif watching the place. They were kind enough to let me get a pic in front of the huge Redwood cross section hanging there at park HQ ... Have to go back again when things clear ...

caturopath 6y ago
These trees have made it through fires before and many of them will make it through again. The forest is a living thing, and this destruction is part of it. I haven't been to Big Basin since the winter because of COVID -- it was closed for a while, then limited parking, and I just stayed closer to home. I hope I didn't miss a last chance at seeing some of my favorite nooks intact.

DTrejo 6y ago

We need some goats to eat all the fuel while it's still growing. Herbivores will also trample dead plants to the ground so grass can grow. Apparently there's too much work for the herders, based on articles published after the last round of fires. Further reading: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/30/goats-sheep-and-cattle-solve-californias-wildfire-grazing-newsom/3308263002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/30/goats-... https://www.google.com/search?q=california+goat+herders&oq=california+goat+herders https://www.google.com/search?q=california+goat+herders&oq=c... https://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_gill_it_s_not_the_cow_it_s_the_how https://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_gill_it_s_not_the_cow_it_s_t... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yiclBCxMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yiclBCxMo

caturopath 6y ago

I love Big Basin. It is one of my favorite places in the world. The meteor trail is the prettiest trail I've found of the hundreds or thousands I've hiked in the Bay outside of the South Bay / Peninsula. The Berry Falls loops is magnificent - I love the sudden, dramatic change of ecosystem even more than the awesome falls. People have been reaching out to me about the fires. I understand why we mourn, but why do we think this is a bad thing? Fires are part of the forest. Humans have done harm here, both from preventing past fires (which make the smaller number of fires worse) and potentially from climate change (I don't know enough to know how strong the connection of global climate change to this sort of event is), but the basics of it seem clear: forests catch fire sometimes. Such natural phenomena are what gave us the forests we have today.

therockspush 6y ago

This one hurts. I've put in a lot of hours up there camping and hiking. I was just talking with someone about how you used to be able to go up there on a whim and snag a last minute campsite. Even if it was next to some jackass running his TV and microwave it was still fun. Any area you go into up there shows the fire damage those trees have survived over the years. I'll miss the old-timey HQ cabin and cafe but I'm counting on a good recovery here.

myrandomcomment 6y ago

I live on the mountain above Los Gatos on the border with Santa Cruz. Yesterday everything smelled of smoke, and the outside was covered in white ash. Today no smoke smell and blue sky as the wind is blowing away from me towards the fire. Better right, but...the area next to me just went red with evacuation orders, and we are next. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f0121f7f2f0941afb3ed70529b2cee75 https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f0121f7f2f0941afb3ed705... We just packed up the important stuff and have it waiting in piles near the door. It is interesting what you think about taking. Clothing for everyone, meds, etc. The FreeNAS box with all the photos and like. The wedding album. The flag from my grandfathers coffin. Books and photos from family that are now 100+ years old. A painting that hung over my grandparents sofa, and then my parents and now mine. My daughter packed a stuffed animal I gave her when she was 6. There are a ton of very expenses items that do not make the cut. It’s the things that drive happy memories but are of little monetary value that do. A lesson in perspective I guess.