GUERNEVILLE – The redwood grove at the base of Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve has never looked more beautiful than it did Friday, because golden light filters through the tall trees in a vast landscape, mostly without human encroachment.
It was easy to forget that a massive fire was burning about a mile up Armstrong Woods Road, where a tongue of the Walbridge fire, after crawling through the adjacent Austin Creek State recreation area, lay on the historic buildings of the closed state park, the raised trees of the Grove and the rest of the attractions of the beloved site.
“We know the fire has not yet entered the forest,” Michele Luna, executive director of Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, said this afternoon. “But it is expected to happen, maybe within 24 hours.”
Luna’s hope was that firefighters could at least preserve the Pond Farm Pottery buildings, which are on the National Register of Historic Places, and an open amphitheater, Forest Theater, built by the Works Project Administration during the Great Depression. And maybe the Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods office, practically located in redwood Grove.
“That will probably be the first building that the firefighters encounter, unless it comes from a different direction,” Luna said.
Hours later, those buildings were still intact.
Luna called the outbreak of fire devastating to her organization, which helps run Armstrong Woods and adjacent recreation area Austin Creek State, but she sounded almost disillusioned with the outcome. Similar sentiments were expressed by Chief Fire Nichols of Cal Fire Division during a virtual public meeting on Thursday night, when he said, “We just do not have the means to keep the fire out of Armstrong Woods.”
Around the LNU Lightning Complex, the massive collection of fires that have devastated Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Solano and Yolo counties since an unusual set of thunderstorms rolled through California on Sunday and Monday, firefighters had to make difficult calculations about what was most valuable, and what could reasonably be preserved.
The terrible truth for Luna and other nature lovers was that even one of the most beautiful and ancient red forests in the North Bay could not be prioritized above endangered cities such as Healdsburg, Cazadero, Rio Nido and Guerneville.
But Cal Fire Representative Paul Lowenthal, who worked as an assistant firefighter at the Santa Rosa Fire Department, refused to frame it when choosing between parkland and civilization.
“It’s not like they’re choosing not to save the park,” Lowenthal said of his base in the Russian Fire Department, just minutes from Armstrong Woods’ entrance. ‘It’s a matter of preventing it from moving in the park. You do not want the fire to continue to burn because it will only increase the intensity. You want to love it so much fuel. ”
Lowenthal’s point: The best way to protect cities and redwood groves equally is to fight the Walbridge wherever it is most effectively confronted.
At noon, Lowenthal was unable to say how many resources Cal Fire had specifically spent on defending Armstrong Woods. But as Nicholls had suggested, there are simply not enough fire crews, engines and air tankers to fight the many fires in California at the moment. Something has to give, and families who grew up loving Armstrong Woods and looking forward to the Austin Creek area were worried that it would be the park that comes with the least defensive work.
The Walbridge fire had already burned much of Austin Creek on Thursday, burning through the Bull fr o Pond campground and over the ridge in Armstrong. Luna said it had destroyed the home of one of the Stewards’ volunteers on McMahon Road, and some other houses along or near that fire.
With bark as thick as foot thick on some of the oldest trees, coastal redwoods are built to withstand wildfires, so much of Luna’s care was focused Friday on structures such as the barn and the former home of the famous potter Marguerite Wildenhain at Pond Farm, instead of towering redwoods like the 1400-year-old General Armstrong Tree.
“The country itself can handle fire,” she said.
Christopher Godley, director of Sonoma County’s emergency management, gave a similar message to the county Board of Supervisors at a special meeting held on Friday afternoon to tackle the fires. “The redwoods know how to live this,” Godley said. “We hope the ecosystem knows how to strike back.”
Many ancient and second-growth giants bear the scars of flames and lightning. But they can burn when a fire is hot enough.
