A raging wildfire has caused extensive damage to Big Basin Redwoods State Park northeast of Santa Cruz, prompting a conservation group to open Thursday to mourn the loss of California’s oldest state park.
“We are devastated to report that Big Basin, as we have known it, loves it, and cherished it for generations, is gone,” the Sempervirens Fund said in a statement. “Early reports are that the wildfire has consumed many of the park’s historic amenities. We do not yet know the fate of the park’s oldest trees. ‘
California State Parks confirmed in a news release that the park had “extensive damage” from the CZU August Lightning Complex fires on Tuesday and would be closed until further notice.
“The fire damaged the park’s headquarters, historic core and campgrounds,” the statement said. “Employees are currently assessing the damage caused by the fire to state park property and we now do not know the number of acres burned in the park.”
As of Thursday morning, the CZU August Lightning Complex had burned 40,000 acres of fire, forced the evacuation of more than 22,000 people and asked authorities to issue an evacuation warning for UC Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley.
Originally called California Redwood Park, Big Basin was created in 1902 amid a statewide movement to protect California’s ancient redwoods, a campaign that included the Sempervirens Fund. The park was originally 3,800 acres and is now roughly 18,000 acres.
Fires have extensively damaged structures on California’s oldest state park, but it is not yet known if the old Big Basin redwoods were seriously damaged.
(Mark Barnes / Santa Cruz County Conference and Visitors Council)
Over the decades, Big Basin became one of the state’s most popular parks, with miles of trails amidst dense trees, campsites and huts, and an amphitheater built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps . According to state officials, many, if not all, of the park’s historic buildings, including its headquarters, have been destroyed.
Andrew Walsh of Ben Lomond, California, walks with his boys, Philip, 2, right, and Thomas, 4, center, along a trail in Big Basin Redwoods State Park on September 5, 2019.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Hollywood has long had an affinity for Big Basin Park. It was a stand-in for Muir Woods in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” when James Stewart walked with Kim Novak among the giant trees. It was also a stand-in for Redwood National Park in the 1967 Disney movie “The Gnome-Mobile.”
As the Sempervirens Fund notes, Big Basin has burned before. A 1904 fire report the New York Times reported that the Big Basin, “which contains some of the largest and most beautiful redwoods trees in the state, seems doomlessly destroyed.”
But the park and forest have been recovered, and the conservation group is hopeful that it will recover, despite the challenges of a warming climate that is intensifying wildfires.
“We are confident that it will once again be born out of the ashes and once again be a place that inspires and educates people from all over the world,” the group said.
Big Basin Redwoods State Park near Santa Cruz, in better days.
(Allie Caulfield / Wikimedia Commons)
“When Big Basin was first founded, it was the catalyst for a conservation movement and a groundbreaking parking system. By renovating Big Basin, we hope it is a catalyst for a new movement, one in which we learn to coexist with wildfire and directly address the effects of climate change. “
