
Wildfires in Big Basin Redwoods State Park - moultano
https://sempervirens.org/wildfires-in-big-basin-redwoods-state-park/
======
cameldrv
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
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
You think that at no time in the last 1000+ years there was a time when brush
built up to the levels seen today?

~~~
pacificmint
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
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.

~~~
wyattpeak
I think it is qualifiable if not quantifiable in that brush is building up.
Perhaps more fires are starting, but the net effect would have to be less
frequent burns of a given area for brush to build up there.

------
myrandomcomment
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/f0121f7f2f0941afb3ed705...](https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f0121f7f2f0941afb3ed70529b2cee75)

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.

------
eucryphia
Maybe prescribed burns once every 500 years isn't enough

[http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/california-maybe-
prescribed...](http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/california-maybe-prescribed-
burns-once-every-500-years-are-not-enough/)

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.

------
michaeltoth
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.

------
bradlys
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
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?

~~~
bcrosby95
California per capita budget is around the middle of all states in the USA -
somewhere around 20th highest. The state has high income and sales tax to
compensate for reduced property taxes due to prop 13.

This is why many people think California has high taxes. Because they move
here, get hit with a high income tax rate, then get hit with a standard
property tax rate if they buy a home.

Meanwhile, my parents pay around 1k/year in property taxes on their million
dollar home.

~~~
war1025
I wonder how much California nonsense would just go away if they repealed
Prop13. It just seems like such a dumb law every time I hear it brought up.

~~~
JKCalhoun
The commercial aspect of Prop 13 is on the ballot for repeal this November.

~~~
stouset
This is some of the best news I’ve heard in a long time.

------
OneLeggedCat
"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
"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.

------
baron816
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
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.

------
caturopath
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.

------
dkislyuk
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
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.

------
hakcermani
[https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/20/exclusive-look-
first-...](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/)

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
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.

------
hirundo
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.

------
benatkin
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.

------
01100011
> 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
I'm curious why this is getting downvoted.

~~~
dave5104
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
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.

------
therockspush
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.

------
m463
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
I don’t know about sequoias, but the closely related coast redwood can and
does produce seedlings without any fire.

~~~
m463
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.

------
DTrejo
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-...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/30/goats-
sheep-and-cattle-solve-californias-wildfire-grazing-newsom/3308263002/)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=california+goat+herders&oq=c...](https://www.google.com/search?q=california+goat+herders&oq=california+goat+herders)

[https://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_gill_it_s_not_the_cow_it_s_t...](https://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_gill_it_s_not_the_cow_it_s_the_how)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yiclBCxMo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yiclBCxMo)

------
gratalis
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)

------
pfarnsworth
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.

~~~
thaumaturgy
[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.

~~~
pfarnsworth
I'm not sure how long you think it takes to repopulate a forest, but 20 years
isn't a very long time. As a human, with a lifespan of 80 years, it might seem
long but to nature it's just a drop in a bucket. I'm pretty confident that the
forest will regrow, just not in a time frame convenient for you. And from your
picture you can clearly see that the forest is regrowing.

~~~
thaumaturgy
> _I 'm not sure how long you think it takes to repopulate a forest, but 20
> years isn't a very long time._

I really dislike this sneering tone that's so common on HN. Just come out and
say "I think you're a moron". I have some notion of geological time scales,
thank you.

Doug fir grows at approximately two feet per year. Do you see a lot of 40 foot
tall trees in those burn scars? It's the tree that most commonly repopulates a
burned area in this region of Oregon. This article has further reading on fire
ecology in Douglas Fir forests:
[https://www.nps.gov/pore/learn/management/firemanagement_fir...](https://www.nps.gov/pore/learn/management/firemanagement_fireecology_vegtypes_douglasfir.htm)

Note that the article makes several distinctions between varying fire
severities.

~~~
pfarnsworth
As it turns out, you were wrong, and all the ancient redwoods survived. I
suggest being a bit more introspective and open to the idea that you could be
wrong.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I think you're probably just a troll, you sure sound like one. But just in
case you're not, and on the tiniest, merest chance that there's any point at
all to this: (a) I made no statement about _all_ the redwoods, only "a number
of the larger trees", a statement for which I provided ample photographic
evidence and by which I still stand; (b) the only reports so far are from an
AP photographer, who is not an arborist; (c) it will be difficult to assess
the full extent of the damage until at least next Spring, so I'll be waiting
until then before being convinced of anything either way; (d) you do not have
the grace and skill to make suggestions that anybody would follow.

Bye now.

------
soledades
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.

~~~
atomi
So Mr Scott is communicating the idea that the global accumulation of CO2
prior to the 1500s was not only caused by indigenous people but it was so
great that their mass "die-off" created a cooler climate for 300 years.
Incredible. I wonder to what Mr Scott attributes the current existential
climate crisis. I can only guess.

------
option
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.

------
anonunivgrad
> _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
I don't how you go from "we cannot be certain" to "no basis to think so".

