The Big Basin Evacuation: Three Days in August 2020
Big Basin Redwoods State Park sits thirteen miles up the road from Boulder Creek, which is the closest town to it. In the middle of August 2020 the park was doing what it always does in the middle of August: running at capacity, with all five campgrounds occupied and staff families living in the residence areas at Sky Meadow. Within three days, 97 percent of its 18,000 acres had burned. Every camper, every staff member, and every household pet in the park got out. Traci Bliss sets the account down in her park history, Big Basin Redwood Forest (2021), and it deserves telling on its own, apart from what the fire did to the town below.
A morning of lightning
The CZU Lightning Complex began at 6:41 a.m. on August 16, 2020. It was the middle of a record heat wave, and in the early hours of that morning roughly eleven thousand lightning bolts had come down across California. Some of them landed in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in terrain that had been drying all summer.
A lightning fire in these mountains wasn't new. Bliss records that in September 1904, somewhere between six and twenty fires burned in the Santa Cruz Mountains at once, and the forest survived largely because none of them merged before the rain came.
Then the wind changed everything
For two days the new fires burned as separate incidents. On the afternoon of August 18, a windstorm pushed three of the local fires into each other, and the merged fire expanded sharply. This was the thing 1904 had been spared, and it changed the situation at Big Basin from serious to immediate.
Much of it happened blind. Bliss notes that park staff had no information on how the fire was moving inside the park itself. The people responsible for a thousand visitors couldn't see the thing they were making decisions about.
Seven people, five campgrounds
That day, ranger Alex Tabone and a team of six evacuated more than one thousand campers from Big Basin's five campgrounds, along with the two staff residence areas at Sky Meadow. Everyone got out.
It's worth sitting with the arithmetic. As late as that third day, the campgrounds were still fully occupied. Seven people cleared an 18,000-acre park holding more visitors than some nearby towns have residents, without being able to see where the fire was. There was no time to wait for certainty, and they didn't wait. The campers were moved before the fire arrived.
The lesson under the story isn't luck. It's that the evacuation started while it could still be orderly. By the time the fire's size was obvious to everyone, the park was already empty.
What the fire took, and what it didn't
The numbers from those days are stark. Across Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, 86,509 acres burned. Big Basin's 18,000 acres were 97 percent charred within three days of the start.
The firefight itself was under-resourced from the beginning. At the 6 a.m. briefing on August 19, crews were told they had the resources for a five-thousand-acre fire and were facing a sixty-thousand-acre one. Cal Fire said publicly that it had 10 percent of what the CZU complex needed. That same day, a state parks damage assessment team driving up Highway 236 past the golf course found the historic park headquarters already gone and the famous auto tree beside it in flames. In the end, close to 180 structural resources were lost in the park. The complex took almost five weeks to be declared contained and wasn't officially extinguished until a few days before Christmas.
Against all of that, one set of numbers held. Nobody in Big Basin, staff or visitor, was killed or injured. Every domestic pet belonging to the residents inside the park survived. In a fire that consumed nearly everything built in the park's long history, the people were the thing that didn't burn.
The town was leaving too
The park's evacuation didn't happen in isolation. Bliss includes a firsthand account of the evening of August 18 in Boulder Creek: the whole town leaving at once, a constant stream of headlights heading down the valley, with law enforcement holding Highway 236 closed to everything but families getting out. The park emptied uphill of a town that was emptying too.
What that night felt like from the town's side, and what the years since have looked like, is its own story. We've told it in six years after the CZU fire. And if reading this raises the practical question, the one about your own household, our wildfire evacuation guide for Boulder Creek covers zones, alerts, and what to have ready now, in a calm season, which is when that page is most useful.
Big Basin now
The park that burned was California's first state park, and the fire took nearly every building from its long history. The forest itself is doing what redwood forests do, which is come back. Big Basin has reopened for day use, and our guide to visiting covers what's open and what to expect.
The evacuation deserves to be remembered alongside the loss. A thousand people walked, drove, and were led out of a park that was about to burn almost completely, because a small team moved early and moved everyone. Six years on, that's still the working model for this valley: know your way out, and don't wait until you can see the reason.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the CZU fire start?
At 6:41 a.m. on August 16, 2020, during a record heat wave, after roughly eleven thousand lightning strikes across California in the early hours of that morning.
How many people were evacuated from Big Basin?
More than one thousand campers, from all five campgrounds and the two staff residence areas at Sky Meadow, on August 18, 2020. Ranger Alex Tabone and a team of six carried it out.
Was anyone hurt in the park?
No. Nobody in Big Basin, staff or visitor, was killed or injured, and every resident's pet survived. The wider CZU fire's toll on the surrounding communities is covered in our town-recovery article.
How much of Big Basin burned?
97 percent of the park's 18,000 acres within three days, out of 86,509 acres burned across Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.
Is Big Basin open today?
It's open for day use. See is Big Basin open for current details before you go.
Where does this account come from?
From Traci Bliss's history of the park, Big Basin Redwood Forest (2021), which records the evacuation and the fire's first days in detail.
Last reviewed August 6, 2026. The account of the fire and evacuation comes from Traci Bliss's Big Basin Redwood Forest (2021). Park access changes with conditions, so check current status before visiting.
For the park's longer story, see Big Basin, California's first state park. For the town's side of August 2020 and the years after, see six years after the CZU fire. Planning a visit? Start with is Big Basin open. And every household here should know the evacuation basics. Something out of date? Tell us.
