If you’ve visited Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in California, you can’t avoid having noticed the bare landscape and charred trees denuded of their leaves, looking more like matchsticks dotting the hillsides. While vegetation is reclaiming those burned areas, and infrastructure has been repaired/rebuilt, there are still portions of the park closed to visitors, and hikers are warned to stay on the trail and be on the lookout for burn scar hazards.
The 2018 Carr Fire torched more than 97 percent of the recreation area’s 42,000 acres, along with 200,000 acres outside the park’s boundaries. Ultimately, eight people were killed and more than 1,000 homes and buildings were destroyed. According to the National Park Service, “The Carr Fire was the most destructive fire in the history of the National Park System.” And yet, this resilient unit of the National Park System has bounced back to provide outdoor adventures and fun on and off the water.
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Rebirth And Recovery At Whiskeytown
It was a freak accident on a hot July day, and one that couldn’t have come at a worse time. A double-axle travel trailer being pulled through Whiskeytown National Recreation Area on Highway 299 during a record-tying heat wave in California blew out a tire, and the rim scraping along the pavement showered the tinder-dry vegetation lining the road with sparks.
Winds that rose to 14 miles per hour [22.5 kilometers per hour] were enough to fan the flames in the 105-degree [41 degrees Celsius] heat and they quickly ran up steep hillsides and turned into a firestorm. In a sense, it was a perfect storm of heat, wind, and dry landscape, a wicked combination of extremes that saw the flames at times form a “fire tornado’ with winds swirling at 165 miles per hour [266 kilometers per hour) and more.
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- By Rebecca Latson - October 4th, 2025 6:24am
