Cultivating Fire Resilience at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park: Photos Capture the First Prescribed Burn Since 1999

Jul 2, 2025

Photo by Austin Noble
On June 16, 2025, staff from California State Parks in coordination with CAL FIRE’s Sonoma Lake-Napa Unit conducted a 14-acre prescribed burn at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park with support from members of the Sonoma Valley Wildlands Collaborative and Team Sugarloaf. The operation focused on a section of grassland near the Meadow Trail, just to the east of the Robert Ferguson Observatory—an area targeted for its importance to both fuel reduction ahead of fire season and the ecological health of the park. This was the first broadcast burn at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park since 1999, marking an important milestone in the collaborative stewardship of the park. It reflects a renewed opportunity to apply prescribed fire as a carefully planned, science-based tool for managing the landscape—made possible through coordination among state agencies and local partners, and the support of our community at large.
 
Photos captured before, during, and after the burn reveal the transformation of the landscape and underscore the professionalism and precision with which State Parks and CAL FIRE personnel carried out the effort. Despite the intense nature of the work, safety was the top priority. Nearby trails were temporarily closed during the burn, which could only occur if a variety of conditions (environmental factors that collectively form the burn’s prescription) were met. These factors, including wind, temperature and fuel moisture were carefully monitored in the days before, during and immediately following the burn. By reducing accumulated dried grass, brush and populations of  invasive plants such as yellow star thistle, nonnative blackberry and medusahead grass, this prescribed burn lowered the severity of future fires in this part of the park while enhancing the Sugarloaf Ridge’s native grassland habitat, providing long-term benefits for wildlife and biodiversity.
Photo by Austin Noble

By reducing accumulated dried grass, brush and populations of  invasive plants such as yellow star thistle, nonnative blackberry and medusahead grass, this prescribed burn lowered the severity of future fires in this part of the park while enhancing the Sugarloaf Ridge’s native grassland habitat, providing long-term benefits for wildlife and biodiversity.

Prescribed burns like this one play a critical role in vegetation management and wildfire resilience. Coordinated with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, this burn was scheduled to ensure optimal weather and air quality conditions, minimizing smoke impacts on other areas of the park and surrounding communities. Thanks to strategic planning and a mutual commitment to safety, with plans to reschedule or cancel the burn if the weather was outside prescription, there were not enough personnel to conduct the burn safely or the wind was blowing towards the campground and park facilities, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park was able to stay open to the public for the entire duration of the burn. Even after the burn was completed, State Parks staff remained on site through the night to monitor the burn area and will continue to do so in the days following the burn in coordination with staff from CAL FIRE. We deeply appreciate our partners at California State Parks and CAL FIRE, whose shared dedication to stewardship and collaboration helps protect the natural resources of Sonoma Valley.

Please do your part to help this part of the park recover by staying on trails and outside the burned area and not recreating on the control lines that were put in place to facilitate the prescribed burn. There are fire weakened trees and other hazards in the burn area far from designated trails and the native grasses and other perennial plants in the meadow are especially vulnerable to trampling in the weeks after the burn as they recover.

More information about prescribed burns in our local State Parks be found at the Bay Area District’s Prescribed Burn Webpage. Updates about specific prescribed burns in our region can also be found online at  https://app.watchduty.org/.

Photos by Austin Noble
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