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Travel|California Parks


'STILL BLAZING GALORE': WILDFIRE TORCHES 95% OF HISTORIC NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
WILDERNESS


THE ISHI WILDERNESS JUST BURNED IN THE PARK FIRE. IT'S PROBABLY A GOOD THING.


Outdoors enthusiasts in Northern California are eager to learn how the Ishi
Wilderness fared in the Park Fire. Courtesy of Brad Cooke
By Ashley Harrell, California Parks Contributing EditorAug 20, 2024



Brad Cooke has been spending a lot of time on Google Earth this month. A couple
of weeks ago, the Chico-based environmental educator was checking it every day
for updates on the progress of the Park Fire — California’s largest current
blaze at 429,388 acres as of Monday. He was particularly concerned about a
little-known outdoor destination that he had been visiting with students for 30
years: the Ishi Wilderness.

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Although the 41,000-acre swath of Lassen National Forest evolved with fire, the
Ishi Wilderness hadn’t seen a significant blaze since 1990. And from what Cooke
could tell from looking at Google Earth images, the fire had “just ripped
through,” he said. “And it’s still blazing galore over there.”  

Nobody’s sure how hot the fire burned there or how extensive the damage is. But
those who are aware of the natural splendors and poignant history in this
little-known pocket of California are eager for news about their beloved
wilderness destination. 

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The Ishi Wilderness was designated in 1984 as part of the California Wilderness
Act.

Courtesy of Brad Cooke


Strange lava formations protrude in the Ishi Wilderness of Northern California. 

Courtesy of Brad Cooke


WHAT IS THE ISHI WILDERNESS?

Tucked into the rugged foothills of the Cascade Range, the Ishi Wilderness is
defined by basaltic cliffs, yawning canyons, unusual lava formations and
spring-fed streams that flow west to the Sacramento River. It is named after a
former resident, Ishi, who became famous for being the last surviving member of
the Yahi people.

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The Yahi inhabited the 2,000 square miles around Mount Lassen for thousands of
years, hunting deer, catching salmon and gathering edible plants. White settlers
arrived during the Gold Rush, and by the early 1870s, they had massacred nearly
all members of the tribe. Ishi, who was still a child, and several others
managed to escape into deep wilderness canyons. They lived in a small band for
many years, but by 1908, all had died except for Ishi.



Ishi of the Yahi people, September 1911.

Alfred L. Kroeber/UC Berkeley Library/Calisphere

After three long years of loneliness, hunger and exhaustion, Ishi summoned the
courage to hike out of the wilderness. To his surprise, he was received with awe
and appreciation, and then he was brought to San Francisco, where he spent the
remainder of his life teaching anthropologists about the lives of his people.
Ishi’s story was documented in the book “Ishi in Two Worlds,” by Theodora
Kroeber, and the book was adapted into made-for-TV films in 1978 and 1992.

For Cooke, who has taught outdoor education classes at Chico State University
and Butte College, the Ishi Wilderness is more than just a piece of California
history. He has been taking students on multiday backpacking trips there for
about 30 years, sometimes bringing historians and archaeologists to help the
students learn about the place.

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“I was always in love with the Mill Creek and Ishi Wilderness zone,” Cooke says.


WHAT IT’S LIKE TO VISIT THE ISHI WILDERNESS 

Getting there is definitely part of the adventure. Visitors must approach on
more than 20 miles of dirt roads to the north of Chico, and upon arrival, they
feel as if they’re 1,000 miles from civilization, Cooke says — like they’ve
somehow arrived in Alaska. The landscape is just that peaceful, remote and
rugged.



Getting to the Ishi Wilderness is definitely part of the adventure. 

Courtesy of Brad Cooke

Because Cooke has been to the Ishi Wilderness during every season, he’s seen it
snow-covered in winter (which is unusual) and teeming with wildlife — mountain
lions, bears and wild horses included — and bursting with native plants in
spring. The hot, dry and dusty summers aren’t ideal for a visit, he says, but
he’s seen that, too.  

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Then there’s the cultural history, which is endlessly fascinating to Cooke. He
makes a point of visiting pine granaries, where Native Americans once gathered
acorns and pine nuts, and points out sacred sites, such as a volcanic plug
called Black Rock that protrudes 250 feet above Mill Creek. He’s found old
gold-mining equipment and traps left by early 1900s trappers, and one time while
hiking with students, they stumbled on one of the oldest slides in California.


Scenes from the Ishi Wilderness.Courtesy of Brad CookeScenes from the Ishi
Wilderness.Courtesy of Brad Cooke

“The tribe made it on this big piece of basalt, and they chipped little hand
holds so the kids could get up there,” Cooke says. “It’s all smoothed out and
rutted.” After finding the slide, Cooke did some research and found it mentioned
in history and archaeology books. It is one of the oldest play slides in
California, he says, and demonstrates that Indigenous children had playground
equipment that was built and perfected over thousands of years.

If you’re wondering whether Cooke slid down it, the answer is yes.

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“That was the first thing I did,” Cooke says.


WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE PARK FIRE’S IMPACT

No one from CalFire has eyeballed or set foot in the Ishi Wilderness since the
Park Fire swept through it, according to agency spokesperson Chris Peterson. But
he could say that nearly all 41,000 acres were within the fire perimeter.

“If I had to give it a percentage, I’d say like 95% of it has definitely been in
the burn area,” he says.

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The Ishi Wilderness is named after a former resident, Ishi, who became famous
for being the last surviving member of the Yahi people.

Courtesy of Brad Cooke

He couldn’t say anything about how hot the fire might have burned in that
specific area, but he did point out that some areas of the Park Fire have burned
“super hot,” while others have not.

“Most of the native trees in California have adapted to live with fire,” he
says, “so as long as it’s a low-intensity fire, most of the trees are pretty
resilient.”

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To learn more about fire history in the area, SFGATE contacted pyro-geographer
Zeke Lunder, who runs a wildfire media outlet called The Lookout and has been
working in the Lassen foothills for 25 years. Lunder pointed out that the edges
of the Ishi Wilderness have seen small wildfires in 2013, 2014 and 2022, but the
last large-scale burn was the Campbell Fire in 1990.


Scenes from the Ishi Wilderness.Courtesy of Brad CookeScenes from the Ishi
Wilderness.Courtesy of Brad Cooke

For a fire-prone area like the Ishi Wilderness to go 34 years without a major
conflagration allows for flammable materials such as leaf litter and dead shrubs
to accumulate. And for that reason, the U.S. Forest Service had recently started
a planning process for controlled burns out there, he said, and held public
meetings to discuss it. But no controlled burns had been conducted yet. 

For the most part, Lunder sees this fire as a good thing for the Ishi
Wilderness, as “it doesn’t seem like there’s much out there that can be harmed
by fire,” he says. One exception to that is the Beaver Creek Pinery, a flat
ridgetop covered in a ponderosa pine savanna. There’s been a lot of research
done out there, Lunder says, because people suspect that much of the landscape
looked similar before widespread fire suppression.

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“So that’s my only real worry, if that place burned,” he says, “because it had
been a long time since it last burned, and there were a lot of dead trees.” From
what he’s seeing in satellite images, though, at least some canopy remains in
the pinery.



The Park Fire spread over Northern California’s Ishi Wilderness. 

Courtesy of Brad Cooke

The Ishi Wilderness is a resilient place, he says, and will begin to recover
almost immediately. Come fall, when it rains, the grass will spread out over the
ground and the oak trees will either still have leaves or sprout them right
back, he says. It will actually be a great time to visit, he says, with all the
brush cleared out.

“After fires like this, it’s a great time to go explore these landscapes,” he
says, “because you can just walk through what used to be 10-foot-tall
manzanita.” Of course, “freshly burned landscape is kind of an acquired
aesthetic taste,” he admits.

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For Cooke, getting back out to the Ishi Wilderness is a top priority, and he’ll
be making the trip as soon as the road becomes passable. He’s hopeful that
Lunder is right and that the wildfire was low-intensity and beneficial for the
forest, the way burns done by Indigenous tribes once were.

At the very least, he knows the ancient playground slide isn’t going anywhere.
And he can’t wait to slide down it again. 

More California Parks


— Tragic death raises troubling questions about safety on Yosemite's Half Dome
— This little-known riverside campground is one of NorCal's best
— People are flying across the world to illegally climb California's redwoods
— Inside NorCal's most isolated, legendary wellness retreat

We love California's parks just as much as you do, so we have a newsletter that
covers them from top to bottom. Sign up here.







Aug 20, 2024
Ashley Harrell
California Parks Contributing Editor

ASHLEY HARRELL IS A CONTRIBUTING EDITOR COVERING CALIFORNIA’S PARKS FOR SFGATE,
WHERE SHE’S WORKED SINCE 2020. FOR THE PAST NINE YEARS, SHE’S ALSO WORKED AS A
FREELANCE WRITER FOR LONELY PLANET, REPORTING FROM 17 COUNTRIES AND CO-AUTHORING
MORE THAN 50 TRAVEL GUIDEBOOKS. HER STORY ABOUT TRIBAL MEMBERS PROTECTING
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK FROM WILDFIRE WON AN SF PRESS CLUB AWARD IN 2021, AND
HER STORY ABOUT WOLF-RANCHER CONFLICTS IN NORTHEASTERN CALIFORNIA WAS LISTED AS
“NOTABLE” IN THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING IN 2022. SEND STORY
TIPS OR COMMENTS TO ASHLEY.HARRELL@SFGATE.COM.




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