Redwoods at Big Basin show resilience 5 years after CZU Fire

By Len Ramirez

BIG BASIN, Calif. (KION) -- It's been nearly five years since a lightning-fueled wildfire caused major damage in Big Basin State Park. That includes scorching some thousand-year-old redwoods.

Since then, an environmental group has been working to ensure those trees are protected far into the future.

Some trees here at Big Basin State Park are thousands of years old.  But 125 years ago, they were being clear-cut in practically no time.  That is until the Sempervirens Club stepped in and stopped it.  Today, the club is still around and still protecting these trees for centuries into the future.

If these ancient redwoods could speak, they might tell a tale of improbable survival and near-death experiences.

"Big Basin was created in 1902 because citizens learned about unfettered clear-cut logging that was happening across the redwood range.” Sempervirens Fund executive director Sara Barth said.

Barth spoke about her predecessors who dared to go against the grain, founding California’s earliest conservation trust 125 years ago.

"The old growth we’re walking into is really what inspired the activism of the founders of the Sempervirens Fund.  And it was revolutionary at the time to think that trees were worth something just left standing," Barth said.

They were left standing, but only to face other man-made and natural threats to their existence.

The 2020 CZU Complex fire, which was caused by lightning, burned 97 percent of Big Basin State Park.

The historic park headquarters and numerous cabins were burned to the ground and tens of thousands of trees were incinerated.

The cabins are gone forever but the redwoods are still alive.

The fire destroyed the wide and dark canopies and the tree tops have a bottle brush appearance, but they persevere.

"Here this tree stands today battle-scarred," Barth said describing a redwood that had faced the fires. 

A burn scar now resides on the side of the tree.

"This scar shows how the tree was hallowed out by earlier fires and you can see how the tree will continue to close that scar over time," Barth said. 

Barth described it as a testament to how resilient redwoods can be.

Now Barth says perhaps the greatest threat to the redwoods will be the hardest to stop.

"Climate change is as big a threat or bigger than the saws were 125 years ago.  We could stop the saws and once we did, the forests were saved.  But climate change, we’re not just going to be able to stop it," Barth said.

She says the challenge is to manage the old-growth forests in a way that lessens the impact of droughts, followed by floods, followed by fires.

The State of California has already outlined plans to remove large parking lots at Big Basin for the benefit of the forest floor, increase shuttles, and limit camping to less sensitive areas.

And Barth says, just as her predecessors did before, the Sempervirens Fund is ready to go against the grain again to support what may be controversial ideas to save the redwoods.

"To protect these forests, we’re going to have to do things like thinning.  That means logging. Select logging. It means bringing fire into areas, controlled fire, to help reduce the flammability of this forest. And so I think the vision that Sempervirens Fund provide to day is helping the public understand why that is so essential to see these beloved redwoods continue for the next seven generations," Barth said.

The next chapters in the lives of these old-growth trees haven’t been written yet.

However, the new forest management strategy is already being rolled out by State Parks.

”I would love to be around for another few thousand to see what’s going to happen to it," Boulder Creek resident Catherine Wilson said.

Visitors like Catherine can only hope that today’s decisions will be as smart as those made 125 years ago and will have positive and long-lasting impacts on the ancient giants of the forest.