The Big Basin Evacuation: Three Days in August 2020
Big Basin Redwoods State Park sits up Highway 236 from downtown Boulder Creek. 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. The park's own staff, the state, and the local paper all recorded what happened, 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 started on the morning of August 16, 2020, in the middle of a record heat wave. It was never one fire with one ignition: a lightning siege dropped something on the order of eleven to twelve thousand bolts across California in a matter of hours, and the complex is the name for the many fires that followed. Sources give different start times, from the small hours through mid-morning, and CAL FIRE's incident record dates it to 8:00 a.m. that day. Traci Bliss's park history gives 6:41 a.m., and this article follows CAL FIRE (Bliss, ebook p. 190, PDF p. 191). Some of those strikes landed in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in terrain that had been drying all summer.
Big Basin had faced fire before. In 1904, a Waterman Creek fire threw sparks as much as half a mile ahead of itself and burned for twenty days before rain subdued it (Arthur Taylor, California Redwood Park, pp. 47 to 51).
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. In 1904 the danger had come from one fire throwing sparks ahead of itself; in 2020 it came from separate fires becoming one. 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.
A small team, five campgrounds
That day, State Park Ranger Alex Tabone and Facilities Maintenance Supervisor Juan Villarino were among the staff who cleared Big Basin's five campgrounds and the two residence areas at Sky Meadow (Bliss, ebook p. 193, PDF p. 194). Everyone got out. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported that October that "Big Basin staff safely evacuated more than 1,000 visitors from the park even as they learned of the loss of their own homes over their radios." California State Parks, in a news release issued the next day, confirmed that all campers, day-use visitors and staff at both Big Basin and neighboring Little Basin were out.
District Superintendent Chris Spohrer put the window on the record two years later, speaking to the Sentinel: about a thousand visitors in the park, and "about a three-hour window to really evacuate. And we were full."
As late as that third day, the campgrounds were fully occupied. A small team cleared the 18,000-acre park without being able to see how the fire was moving. Tabone later described going campground to campground telling people to take only what they could not live without and leave. The campers were moved before the fire arrived.
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 (Bliss, ebook p. 193, PDF p. 194). 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 (Bliss, ebook p. 196, PDF p. 197). Of the seven homes in the Sky Meadow staff housing district, lived in since the 1950s, one was left standing. CAL FIRE records containment on September 22, 2020. Bliss reports that the fire was not officially extinguished until a few days before Christmas.
Nobody in Big Basin, staff or visitor, was killed or injured. Every domestic pet belonging to the residents inside the park survived (Bliss, ebook p. 190, PDF p. 191).
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 in a constant stream of headlights. The record from the town's side matches it. CAL FIRE ordered evacuations in Santa Cruz County at about 7:30 that evening and added the whole of Boulder Creek at about 10, and the Santa Cruz Sentinel photographed Highway 236 traffic inching along north of Boulder Creek that Tuesday, with sheriff's deputies working the road, and reported traffic backed up for miles on Highway 9 into town. The park emptied uphill of a town that was emptying too.
The town's evacuation and the years of rebuilding are covered in six years after the CZU fire. For current zones, alerts, routes, and what to keep ready, use the Boulder Creek wildfire evacuation guide.
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.
More than a thousand visitors were evacuated from five campgrounds in about three hours. By the time the historic headquarters burned, the park was empty.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the CZU fire start?
On the morning of August 16, 2020, during a record heat wave, after a lightning siege dropped something on the order of eleven to twelve thousand strikes across California. It was a complex of many fires rather than a single ignition, and reported start times vary; CAL FIRE's incident record dates it to 8:00 a.m. that day.
How many people were evacuated from Big Basin?
Everyone in the park: all five campgrounds and the two staff residence areas at Sky Meadow, on August 18, 2020. Bliss records the evacuation of more than a thousand campers. State Parks confirmed that all campers, day-use visitors and staff at both Big Basin and Little Basin had been evacuated.
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.
Park access changes with conditions, so check current status before visiting.
For current evacuation zones, alerts, routes, and preparation steps, use the Boulder Creek wildfire evacuation guide.
Sources
- CAL FIRE, CZU Lightning Complex incident record.
- California State Parks news release, 19 August 2020.
- KALW, five years after the CZU fire, 18 August 2025.
- Santa Cruz Sentinel, 6 October 2020.
- Santa Cruz Sentinel, 26 May 2022.
- Traci Bliss, Big Basin Redwood Forest: California's Oldest State Park (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2021), ebook pp. 139, 190, 193 and 196.
Links checked 17 August 2026.
