SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County will partially reopen to the public this weekend for the first time since the CZU Lightning Complex Fire ripped through its iconic and majestic groves nearly two years ago.
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The closure of Big Basin, California's oldest state park, was needed to help the recovery of nearly 18,000 acres of meadows, canyons and old growth redwoods.
Sara Barth, Executive Director of the non-profit Sempervirens Fund, said visitors will experience a very different park when it reopens on Friday. "What had been redwood and green foliage, now is charred blackened tree trunks," she told KCBS Radio.
The lightning-sparked blaze roared through the park in August 2020, killing one person and scorching more than 86,000 acres, including most of the park’s redwoods. Barth said she applauds the way the state approached restoring and reopening the land.
"State parks and stakeholders really thought long and hard about how this park could be made ecologically resilient and safe," she explained.
Close to 1,500 of the park's historic buildings were damaged or destroyed in the fire – including its headquarters and visitor's lodge. When the park fully reopens, officials plan to relocate most of those facilities away from where the most sensitive groves are located.
Barth said officials have used the past two years to rethink how humans impact the park's landscape. The result, in addition to a forest that's healing, is a more sustainable, managed and authentic experience for visitors.
"When they go into those cathedral-esque old growth groves, they're not going to have as many signs or indications that of humanity and instead will really be able to immerse themselves in the forest," she said.
Barth added the entire state has a lot to learn from the destruction and the restoration of Big Basin State Park. "What's happened at Big Basin here with this fire and this recovery is absolutely an illustration about what much of the rest of California is facing," she said.
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