California State Parks’ Program, Coordinated with CalFire — Recent Operations Focused in the Santa Cruz Mountains
California State Parks crews are continuing to conduct pile-burning work across the state. The most recent announcement is that they are targeting the Santa Cruz Mountains with pile burns planned across Big Basin Redwoods, Castle Rock, and Henry Cowell (including the Fall Creek unit). Operations are planned, as weather and air-quality windows allow, through April 2026. This is hands-on fuel reduction; not spectacle, not a shortcut, but a deliberate effort to remove the dry wood and brush fuel that can turn a lightning strike or a stray ember into a catastrophic, large-scale, landscape-devouring wildfire.

On October 30 the Bureau of Land Management lifted seasonal fire restrictions on BLM-managed public lands in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Imperial, southern Inyo, eastern Mono, San Diego, and eastern Kern counties. Campfires, barbecues, and gas stoves are allowed again on those BLM lands — but only with a valid California campfire permit. Permits are required outside developed campgrounds and are available for free at
Effective November 8, 2020 the National Park Service has moved Cicely Muldoon from acting Superintendent – a position she has held since January, 2020 – to permanent Superintendent of Yosemite National Park.
Today the National Park Service announced $1.9 million in indian tribes and museums across the United States to “assist in the consultation, documentation, and repatriation of ancestral remains and cultural items as part of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).