RIVER FIRE AT HOPLAND RESEARCH & EXTENSION CENTER

Plein air painting, "Live Oak" Hopland

Painting site after the fire.

  Last September, (2017) I spent a full day visiting with staff and the  property of the Hopland Research and Extension Center, a division of the Agriculture and Natural Resources of University of California. The staff graciously gave me a tour through the property, and then allowed me to travel through much of it to photograph and paint.  On the 5000+ acres I found most of it covered with oak woodlands, and scrub oak and chaparral on the highest peaks of the surrounding hills.  The property contains 11 species of California oaks, so of course, I was in Oak heaven.

Tragically the Hopland Center was a part of the River Fire which burned through the area this Summer and became a part of the larger Mendocino Complex fire .  I was again granted a visit, just last week, to see what had happened to the beautiful property I had toured the year before.   The fire, while it didn't burn any of the ranch buildings, nor injure any of the domestic animals, (mainly sheep and guard dogs) it did burn 2/3rds of their property overall, mostly the oak woodlands and the higher chaparral.  It was quite shocking to see the results of the fire on the beautiful oak landscape. Shocking and fascinating at the same time.  I took lots of photographs. I'm now contemplating how to portray, the results of our ubiquitous summer fires which has the potential to destroy so much of this iconic species of tree in our state. 

As the result of the fire, the Hopland Research and Extension Center is becoming an important study area for many groups/organizations to study what happens after a fire, recovery processes over time, and how to prevent such devastation in the first place.  For example, staff pointed out that areas where they had done controlled burns in the past couple of years, showed much less damage to the trees themselves as there was far less fuel load for fire.  And we know that the Native People who populated early California's oak woodlands, used land use stewardship practices, such as controlled burns to ensure the health of the oaks and related native grasses, and animals.  I will be visiting again the middle of October, and will post any updates of interest.  You can also see what is happening by going to their Facebook page: hopland research and extension center.