From Ashes to Opportunity
Post-Fire Research and Restoration at Swanton Pacific Ranch
BY ANNMARIE CORNEJO
From a quiet vantage point at Swanton Pacific Ranch, overlooking the valley below, the sweeping landscape tells a story of survival. Trees gnarled into charred remnants stand tall, next to sprouting vegetation that is quickly growing in soil that was once shaded by closed canopies. Birds flutter throughout the countryside as larger birds of prey fly overhead, thriving in an ecosystem that has long sustained them.
Five years ago, when the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fire swept through the ranch, it left behind a scorched, unfamiliar landscape and destroyed most of the structures and infrastructure at the ranch. Just as the natural landscape regenerates after fire, the structural and operational rebirth of the ranch, serving as a vital hub of research and hands-on learning for Cal Poly students across the university, is marking its own renewal and resurgence.
Signs of Renewal
Satellite imagery from the time of the fire shows a broad, ash-gray/brown burn scar appearing along Scott Creek and adjacent drainages, with large swaths of forest canopies lost throughout the ranch. Within a year, noticeable growth of the understory and shrubbery was visible, with redwood stands beginning to show signs of recovery. Slowly over the next several years, compounding impacts of hazard tree removal, salvage logging, and general forest health work became visible at the landscape level. Roads, trails, fences and areas of the forest that experienced high mortality were cleared of hazardous fuels and replanted with conifer seedlings. Today, the landscape looks vibrantly different.
Green growth cloaks the riparian corridors and lower slopes, with cleared areas experiencing a revival of life as planted and natural recruits fight for their future role as Cal Poly’s school forest.
Likewise, the ranch’s facilities are showing gradual improvement, with larger infrastructure plans ongoing. Temporary tent cabin facilities have been built to provide lodging for students attending educational trips and conducting research at the ranch. A new solar-powered livestock watering system was installed, new fencing built and damaged roads repaired. In the past five years, work behind the scenes has sustained the ranch’s future by securing funding to rebuild for future generations of learners and formed partnerships that will continue to build momentum and provide opportunities for students and faculty to study and practice working lands management, conservation and restoration practices in a catastrophic post-fire environment.
Ongoing Research and Recovery
Students are an active part of the ranch’s recovery, research and monitoring work that has been ongoing since the fire, with numerous examples bringing to life Cal Poly’s Learn by Doing ethos. This summer, seven interns spent several months at the ranch working alongside staff to make improvements on trails, fences, irrigation systems and vegetation management plans. The students teamed up with the Santa Cruz Mountain Trail Stewardship program to repair and restore nearly two miles of trails that are central to the ranch, leaving a lasting impact for future visitors and researchers.
Ollie Topper, a third-year forest and fire sciences major, said that interning at Swanton Pacific Ranch provided direct experience in both mechanical skills such as building trails and running heavy machinery and more technical stills like working on the ranch’s vegetation treatment plan. “It is extremely rewarding is to know that my work, in collaboration with the other interns, made a direct and tangible impact with the future of the ranch,” Topper said.
Ongoing research is focused on managing post fire landscapes. “Fire poses challenges that are relevant to California in general,” said Assistant Professor of Wildland Fire Management Ashley Grupenhoff. “The research we are doing at Swanton Pacific Ranch will help not only our own understanding but the community and landowners in that area as a whole.” Grupenhoff and her students are studying a stand of Monterey pine, one of only five native stands of the species that remain throughout California and Mexico. It is considered a threatened habitat due to pressures from human development, climate change and increasing frequencies of severe wildfires, which simultaneously threaten the ecosystem services and communities these systems support, she said.
Their research is assessing the effectiveness of various postfire management treatments in promoting seedling establishment, growth and overall forest recovery through establishment of a permanent monitoring program. Julian Durante (Environmental Management and Protection, ’25) said the project fed his passion for environmental restoration and botany. “It reaffirmed my desire to do field work,” he said. “This research will be used to determine how forests are managed in the future. It is inspiring to be a part of that.”
The research will continue for years to come. “Swanton Pacific Ranch provides a place where we can bring students year after year and continue to collect data,” Grupenhoff said. “It is a unique opportunity to research how the new normal of fire in California is impacting this important species’ population.”
In other areas, faculty and students are working with the Resource Conservation
District of Santa Cruz County and Jacobs Farm del Cabo on project plans for the restoration of lower Scott Creek. The project will enhance ecosystem services within the floodplain and adjacent agricultural fields. Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences Professor Chris Surfleet, along with two environmental science and management graduate students, Mia Alonso (’25) and Ellis Price (’25), assisted with related technical studies.
Much like the resurgence of the natural landscape, rebuilding of the structural operations at the ranch takes time and can provide learning opportunities along the way. Ongoing technical work assessing how site specific geological, historical, biological, agricultural, visual and other resources interact with planned developments also continues, with the goal of building new facilities including an educational center. Models for semester-long and year-round residential programs for undergraduate and graduate students are also being evaluated, as well as a strategic investment of resources in student and faculty engagement at the ranch.
“We are building a resilient, stable system in partnership with our surrounding community that will continue to shine and offer the best service and educational opportunities to the college and university,” said Swanton Pacific Ranch Director Mark Swisher. “Swanton Pacific Ranch serves as a living laboratory where students apply classroom concepts to real-world agricultural and environmental challenges. This hands-on experience equips them with practical skills and problem-solving abilities that make them job-ready from day one.”
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