The Creek Fire of Twenty Twenty: When the Forest Burned
Near Oakhurst, California
In September of twenty twenty, extreme heat and a probable lightning strike combined to produce one of the most destructive wildfires in California history in the mountains directly above Oakhurst. The Creek Fire began on September fourth and grew with terrifying speed in conditions of low humidity, high temperatures, and strong wind. Before it was finally contained it had consumed roughly three hundred eighty thousand acres of the Sierra National Forest, making it the largest single-ignition wildfire in California history up to that point.
The fire burned through forests around Bass Lake and through the Sierra National Forest east and north of Oakhurst. About a thousand people were trapped at the Mammoth Pool Reservoir area as the fire cut off all roads. The California National Guard conducted emergency helicopter evacuations, airlifting more than two hundred people to safety from the lakeside over several days.
Many had come for the Labor Day weekend and found themselves surrounded by fire in the night. Oakhurst itself was threatened but survived largely intact. The fire burned for months and was finally contained in December.
It was a warning about the future of fire in the warming Sierra Nevada, where a century of fire suppression had left forests dense with accumulated fuel and decades of drought had left those forests dangerously dry. The landscape visible from the highway above Oakhurst today still shows the scars.
