California’s oldest state park, which was severely damaged by the CZU wildfire last year, may not fully reopen for another year.
A portion of Big Basin Redwoods State Park will reopen on Memorial Day, but the entire park will still not be accessible.
Burned buildings have not been cleared and precarious trees burned by the CZU wildfire still pose a risk.
“It was an 86,000 acre fire and it’s a timber fire,” Rich Sampson, division chief with CAL FIRE, said. “When you’re dealing with a tree with root systems that will go down 30 feet, maybe even more, fire gets down deep into the ground like that, it may stay burning for months and sometimes even years.”
State officials have not released an estimate of the damages at Big Basin and park advocates fear that could lead to a loss of millions of dollars in federal funds.
The marine layer was once thought to have given added protection to Big Basin, but climate change has altered that, according to Luissa Rapport, who is with Santa Clara County Fire.
“It’s a new landscape and a new fire risk,” she said.
Big Basin attracts more than a million people every year.
Related
