Reopening a burned-over park will be a hard, lengthy process

[Rex Sanders]

In 2020 the CZU Lightning Complex Fire torched more than 97% of Big Basin Redwoods State Park and destroyed almost all buildings and infrastructure.

Julie Cart describes the monumental task of reopening California’s oldest state park.

https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/04/big-basin-park-heals-wildfires/

In the annals of California history, no one has ever had to put a broken state park back together. There’s no guidebook, no rules. So now state officials and conservationists are attempting a complex and extraordinary Humpty Dumpty project: The reawakening of Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

…

The repair list is unimaginably long. Here’s a partial catalogue: six vehicle bridges and 46 pedestrian bridges, 85 miles of trail, 53 miles of road, 100 structures, including the park headquarters, a museum, a lodge, 20 ranger homes, hundreds of signs and miles of fences.

It’s going to take a long, long time for the park to be rebuilt, and for the forests to heal. …

But don’t expect an identical Big Basin.

Many other parks, forests, and other protected areas in the Western U.S. are going through a similar process.

— Rex

[Jenny A]

Yeah, sorry to hear – that’s tough.  The fires that came through Rocky Mountain National Park last fall have resulted in many backcountry campsites being closed, who knows for how long.  Not as much infrastructure destroyed as in California, but it is still putting even more pressure on areas that are still open.  As if state and federal land managers needed more on their to-do lists….

[Marcus]

I live within a day’s drive of here and would volunteer a weekend to rebuild a bridge or something. So the state parks ever organize volunteer events like that?

[Michael B]

If I knew the state was just going to divert existing budget monies, that would be one thing, but that is unfortunately not how our state government runs. Even for a good cause such as rebuilding a public park like this, I’d be opposed to additional public spending.

[Pedestrian]

I’ve hiked a lot of Big Basin over the years. Given how overused and over visited it had become in the last couple of decades, it’s just as well that the park will be shut down for a long time.

The land and the ecosystems simply need to recover and regenerate which could take several years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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