"Two months ago, Napa County's Cleary Reserve was a cathedral of green. Oak branches arched over the entry road. Salamanders flickered in the brush, and a century-old lodge stood ready for students. At its heart lay a rare redwood grove - the most inland natural stand in California - where waterfalls spilled through its shaded canyon. Now, it's a graveyard."
""Some of the bigger oak trees, that one was probably 300 years old," he said, pointing to a blackened trunk still standing near the lodge as he guided The Press Democrat through the charred footprint. "It is not going to survive. I will never see it grow again. It is sad but I have to get used to that idea.""
"In the first days of the Pickett Fire, which ignited Aug. 21, Cleary Reserve and nearby Aetna Springs were untouched. Alvarez kept watch from afar, refreshing Cal Fire's live fire map, hoping the flames would pass the land he had stewarded for nearly 45 years. As darkness fell, the blaze exploded in intensity, swelling to more than 6,000 acres - the largest fire in Napa and Sonoma counties this year."
Cleary Reserve in Aetna Springs was a nearly 500-acre nonprofit preserve with oak-canopied roads, salamander habitat, a century-old lodge, and the most inland natural redwood grove in California. The Pickett Fire ignited Aug. 21 and initially left the reserve untouched, but on the night of Aug. 23 the blaze exploded, swelling beyond 6,000 acres and burning straight through the property. Approximately 90 percent of the preserve burned, leaving blackened tree skeletons, stone ruins, and the loss of centuries-old oaks and decades of field-based education stewarded by biologist Jeff Alvarez.
Read at The Mercury News
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