Life After Fire – Big Basin Park 2024
Fossil remains of redwoods are found all over the planet dating back 200 million years. The Coast Redwood variety, which grows along the California coast, has been logged to a small percentage of its former numbers. Most of the remaining trees are second, third and fourth
growth, around 75 to 150 years old, and around 200’ tall. The few remaining old-growth trees are around 1000-1500 years old and 350’ or more tall.
On August 16th, 2020, over 10,000 lightning strikes hit the ground igniting the CZU fire. It set fire to the forest in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, which included old-growth groves of trees in Big Basin Park.
No stranger to fire, these trees are uniquely able to withstand fire. Besides fire-resistant bark, they carry ancient genetic material, tiny “buds” that can produce new foliage. It might take 1000years, but for a 200 million-year-old species, 1000 years is no problem; neither is three years, and three years after the CZU fire, the forest continues to grow. Some of the big trees fell, fire having entered inside the tree through cavities from previous fires which hollowed the tree out further, or by burning the roots, the fire simmering underground for a year or more. As is said, “there is more space between the trees”. But some 80% of the old growth trees are still standing, the bright green growth seeming to glow against the blackened trunks–a beautiful
natural display of survival.