Fife Creek — A burned area near Fife Creek leaves its mark with ash and soot.
Fingers of the Walbridge Fire burned slowly down slopes and into parts of the forest floor of the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve last week, and while it did not affect any structures or iconic trees such as the 1,400-year-old Colonel Armstrong tree, the fire did back its way down through the Austin Creek State Recreation Area through the Bullfrog Pond Campground, causing damage to picnic tables, bathrooms, fencing and trails.
In an effort to work toward recovering the area, the Stewards of the Coast Redwoods organization has started a donation campaign to raise $100,000.
Donations will help support staff efforts to mobilize volunteers to work on fire recovery efforts for trail rehabilitation. Funds will also go toward a new campground water system and replacing damaged picnic tables, fencing, signage, park equipment and supplies. They’ll also have to restore areas where access points were created and used to fight the fire.
“There are these access roads that were created to fight the fire which were really beneficial, but some of those access points need to be rehabilitated at some point because it is a watershed and we have fish there in streams in the backcountry of Austin Creek,” said Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods Executive Director Michele Luna.
The recovery process will be a joint effort between the Stewards of the Coast, partnering organizations and the California State Parks.
Luna said most of the significant damage to the Austin Creek Recreation Area is on the park infrastructure and campgrounds.
“There is a lot of wildland that burned, of course. Particularly in terms of infrastructure, our campground Bullfrog Pond had significant damage,” she said.
While some of the campsites are still there and won’t take too much work to get back in order, Luna said the biggest concern for the area is damage to its water system. She said a damage assessment on their water system is still pending, although the pump house did burn.
“It just depends on how much damage was done to the water system, the holding tank, the pump … We don’t know if the underground pipes were affected, there’s just a whole lot of unknowns with regards to that at this point,” she said.
The Bullfrog Pond Campground also lost about four of its picnic tables. Luna said the other significant issue with infrastructure is damage to one of the restrooms.
“There are two restrooms up there and one of the restrooms suffered significant damage,” she said. Luna said a tree that may have been burning fell on top of the bathroom building roof and burned the inside.
She added that fire crews were able to save the pond farm, but a parks maintenance worker’s residence was lost to the fire.
“Those are the biggest things at the moment, but as I said, the land will recover and we’ll be expecting a beautiful wildflower season as a result,” Luna said.
In regards to the Armstrong Reserve, Luna said the infrastructure is intact and the fire was mostly contained to the steep slopes of the forest.
She said the fire got pretty close to their office as well as to the Steward Ship, their mobile marine learning van, yet all of the structures were saved.
Luna wasn’t able to get close to the area where the historic Colonel Armstrong tree is, but she did say the fire got close to the great tree.
“Our iconic trees, the colonel and the Parson Jones tree and some of the big trees are all fine, so that is all very good news,” she said. “When you travel through the grove itself there’s a lot that is not burned, but that is on the forest floor itself. They (first responders) did a really good job keeping the fire contained to the upward slopes and so most of what you see in the grove is the slope areas that are burned. I think where it got into the grove itself is more prevalent in that area and is closer to our historic forest theatre.”
Sonoma County District 5 Supervisor Lynda Hopkins first reported that the fire had reached the forest floor on Aug. 25 and instead of being wind-driven, the flames slowly crept their way down the slopes.
”It is active on the floor of Armstrong Woods,” Hopkins wrote in an Aug. 25 social media update. “It’s important to remember that this fire is not functioning as a wind-driven wall of fire. Instead, it often takes the form of small fingers of fire ‘backing’ its way downslope towards a valley floor. The bad news is that these small fingers can burn gradually down to the floor of a valley, hit bottom, and then run back up to a ridgeline — gaining heat and speed as it heads upwards — making a sort of zig-zag pattern in the same canyon for days, even weeks.”
Luna said there is still a lot of smoldering going on in the area and crews are working on mopping up smoldering hot spots.
“This area hasn’t burned in 100 years so it’s definitely good for rejuvenation and regeneration of the forest itself. As you know, redwoods are really resilient and it is not uncommon to see charred redwood trees that are healthy, it’s when it gets to the inside of the tree that there can be some damage,” Luna said.
Luna said there are some large trees that came down in the park, and some trees may be hazardous. She said the National Guard has been deployed to the area and are working on burning brush and checking on trees.
Going forward, trail rehab and installing new fencing and signage will be an important part of the recovery process. Continued fundraising efforts will also be important since the Steward’s two main revenue sources are defunct for the time being, Luna said.
“The campground is one of our main sources of revenue. The other revenue source we have is the day use (fee). We get a percentage of day use revenue to cover some of our work at Armstrong and what we do at Austin Creek and those two significant revenue sources are gone for the time being until Armstrong can be reopened,” she said. “We’re also trying to get immediate relief from some of our partner organizations that are also working on both relief and recovery funds as well because there is some relief that is needed for our employees who have been affected by the fire so we’re looking at how to raise that money also.”
She said she doesn’t know when they’ll be able to reopen both the Armstrong and Austin Creek reserves.
“They (the state parks) won’t be opening up the park for visitors for quite some time. As an educational organization we expect to sponsor some fire walks at some time and as soon as we can we will and we’ll create ways for people to visit the park, a park that is very dear to their hearts,” Luna said.
To make a donation to the Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods fire recovery campaign, visit: https://www.stewardscr.org/fire-recovery.html
