Big Basin Redwoods State Park, California's oldest state park, endured a rapid and catastrophic loss when the CZU Lightning Complex fires spread in August 2020. Strong winds initially pushed smoke out to sea before flipping and driving the flames into the park, where spot fires became a raging inferno. The blaze destroyed roughly 100 structures, 85 miles of trails, 20 staff homes and a nearly completed nature museum. Many ancient redwoods survived but lost canopy and were blackened across broad trunks. Five years later sunlight reaches the forest floor and vigorous new growth fills areas denuded by the fire.
In the early hours of the CZU Lightning Complex fires, ignited Aug. 16, 2020, the wind moved in a southern direction, forcing the light brown plumes of wildfire smoke over the Pacific Ocean and away from the historic facility and forest nestled deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains. But to the horror of the park's staff and an anxious public, the wind flipped on Aug. 18 and put the treasured local enclave directly in the fire's path.
What started as a few spot fires quickly transformed into a raging inferno that chewed through 100 structures, 85 miles of trails, 20 homes inhabited by State Parks staff and a new nature museum that was only months from opening. Most of the park's famous old growth redwoods, some standing at 1,800 years old, survived the harrowing ordeal but were stripped of any elegant greenery and left with broad trunks entirely blackened by flames.
With much of the canopy gone and sunlight streaming in, the forest floor is filled with new growth at Big Basin Redwoods State Park five years after the devastating August 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires. (Shmuel Thaler Santa Cruz Sentinel) The stone steps are all that remain of Park Headquarters at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The building, destroyed in the CZU fires, was a historic structure built in 1936 by crews of the Civilian Conservation Corps. (Shmuel Thaler Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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