Wildfire Research

Stumps burned at Quail Hollow. For years many locals I met that live around here told me they believed these redwoods burned in the 1954 Ben Lomond dump fire. But researching the fire history, its more likely these burned in the much more fierce “red demon” fire a generation earlier.

The Big Fire in the Big Basin: The long history and short memory of wildfire in the Santa Cruz Mountains

Book project

This book is about the post-colonial wildfire history in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Spanish dispossession of Indigenous fire regimes and landscape level changes caused by deforestation during American occupation set into motion an active period of wildfires across the region in the late 1800s that lasted in the early 20th century. These fires spurred efforts to protect the region’s redwood forest through the formation of the Sempervirens Fund and founding of Big Basin State Park, but also further entrenched practices that encouraged further wildfire suppression. Major wildfires covering large areas were common from the late 1800 through 1920s, and followed by efforts from the labor camps and the CCC to build fire towers and fuel breaks which coincided with a period of low fire activity until 1948, when the county saw its largest wildfire until the CZU Lightning Complex fire in 2020. A civil grand jury described as the largest in county history. The historical analysis presented here suggests several fires larger than the CZU Lightning complex in the post-colonial history, and concludes this memory was lost owing to the generation-long spans between major fires in the county.

Mapping the post-colonial wildfire footprints of 1850–1940

The long cadence between major wildfire periods in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the timing of official CalFire mapping is another reason for the short memory of wildfires in the area. This project is to make a complete inventory of all wildfires and wildfire suppression effects that predate the official wildfire records. The official wildfire records for the county show the 1948 Pine Mountain Fire as the earliest in the county’s spatially-described and recorded history.

A collaboration with the University of California, Santa Cruz, Center for Critical Urban and Environmental Studies project: Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Research for Resilience: Addressing California’s Climate, Conservation & Housing Crises