OCTOBER 2020
Resilience of the Redwoods
Actually, I can’t say this fact is that much fun. It’s heartbreaking. Almost all of Big Basin Redwoods State Park was burned last month during the CZU Lightning Complex fire. Some of these trees were as old as 2,000 years!
My children have many fond memories of camping at Big Basin and now much of it is gone. The visitor’s center at Big Basin burned to the ground. It’s almost unfathomable.
Historic headquarters burned to the ground. Credit: Active NorCal
It blows my mind to think that Roaring Camp Railroad park, the setting of the final scene in Book Three of the True Nature Series, is also gone!
Photo Courtesy of Swanton Pacific Railroad.
But while buildings and infrastructure was lost much of the majestic Redwoods will miraculously survive due to the trees’ semi-fireproof bark. Finally, we get to the fun fact of this story.
“These trees are amazing,” Mark Finney, a research forester with the U.S. Forest Service in Montana who studied the redwoods as a graduate student at UC Berkeley told the San Jose Mercury News. “Redwoods are an ancient lineage. There are fossils of them from tens of millions of years ago. It’s not the same kind of creature as our other trees. They have lived through a lot.”
(How the ancient redwoods in California’s oldest state park survive wildfires)
“Redwoods have thick bark that can survive intense blazes, Finney told the Mercury News. Tannin in the trees’ bark and heartwood give the redwoods their color and also act as a flame retardant….”
(How the ancient redwoods in California’s oldest state park survive wildfires)
Photo courtesy of storybrandhero.com
“Redwoods, for all their towering might, they really gain their strength from a shallow but widespread root structure and so they support one another, they’re very interconnected under the ground. It may not be obvious and, as we rebuild this park, it’s going to take that same kind of network.”
(Wildfire Damage at Big Basin State Park Extensive but Largest Redwoods Should Survive)
I love the Redwoods! Aren’t they amazing? The idea of a network of roots supporting each other is a lesson to us all about the strength we can gain and give when we work together. And the tough, fire-retardant bark of older trees teaches us that the challenges we go through in this life make us stronger and able to face the trials of our futures.
So, in the midst of this terrible loss, there’s hope and there are lessons.
I want to thank all the fire fighters pouring in from many states to help with the California fires. You are inspiring!
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