I spent my childhood summers cradled in the arms of giants. Beneath a canopy of ancient redwoods, where sword ferns unfurled like green lace and moss muffled every footstep, I learned what it meant to feel small in the best possible way—insignificant, yes, but held. Every June, we’d cram into the car—me, my brother, my cousin, sometimes a tagalong friend—and drive four hours north from Klamath, California, to meet our grandparents at their seasonal RV tucked deep into the forest.
The journey had its rhythms. The monotonous stretch of I-5. The agricultural checkpoint at the Oregon border. The tunnel where drivers honked out “shave and a haircut,” hoping someone would answer. Then the transition: flatlands giving way to cliffs, the wild Smith River churning alongside the road like a silver ribbon, and finally, the colonnade of trees rising like cathedral pillars. When the sky narrowed to a strip of green-lit dusk, we knew we’d arrived.
Two decades later, the giants I grew up with are under siege.
On August 15, 2023, nearly 150 lightning strikes ignited northern California’s Six Rivers National Forest in a single 24-hour burst. Twenty-seven fires erupted, a dozen of them tearing through the Gasquet Ranger District. The largest cluster, known as the Smith River Complex, quickly spiraled into one of the most destructive fire events the region has faced in years. By the time containment efforts wrapped, more than 95,000 acres had burned, leaping the California-Oregon border, forcing evacuations, and shuttering Highway 199—the only road linking inland communities to the coast.
The outages hit fast and hard. In rural areas like Crescent City, no power means no well pumps, no drinking water, no refrigeration. Toilets stop flushing. Ice becomes currency. My brother called me from the middle of it all: “We just got our power back,” he said. “But we’re still stuck. The road hasn’t reopened.”
By late August, the fire crossed into Oregon, scorching parts of the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest. These weren’t ordinary wildfires. Like many of today’s megafires, the Smith River Complex burned with a ferocity fueled by a century of fire suppression, a dense buildup of logging slash, and climate-driven drought. Where fire once played a regenerative role—clearing out underbrush, making space for new growth—today’s blazes dig deeper. They char root systems, sterilize soil, and leave behind a hydrophobic crust that repels water. The next storm doesn’t soak the ground. It strips it, sending ash, silt, and debris careening downhill into creeks and rivers.
The Smith River—California’s last major undammed waterway and one of the clearest in the country—took a massive hit. Its jade-green pools, home to threatened species like the Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast coho salmon, now carry the scars of fire runoff. Spawning beds clog with sediment. Warmer, shallower waters hold less oxygen. Even the smallest creatures—stoneflies, caddisflies, the building blocks of the food web—begin to vanish.
From my apartment in Portland, I followed the destruction through news alerts and frantic family texts. A coworker mentioned wanting to visit the Redwoods that summer. I hesitated. “You might not be able to,” I said. And I caught myself wondering: how many beloved landscapes do I need to revisit—soon—just in case they don’t make it?
Redwoods, of course, are no strangers to fire. Their bark can grow a foot thick. It shrugs off heat. Their tannin-rich wood resists rot and bugs. And in summer, coastal fog accounts for up to 40% of their water intake, acting as a natural firebreak. But even these living fortresses are feeling the heat. The fog is thinning. Drought seasons are longer. Entire groves have begun to die back, and younger trees, less armored, more exposed, are especially vulnerable.
Still, the story doesn’t end in ash.
The Yurok Tribe, whose ancestral lands encompass much of the region, is reclaiming both territory and tradition. Over the past two decades, they’ve regained more than 70,000 acres and established a Salmon Sanctuary in the Blue Creek watershed—a 15,000-acre stronghold designed to protect and restore fish habitat. In 2023, the Yurok Lands Act was introduced in Congress. If passed, it would return another 1,200 acres and formally recognize lands already stewarded through conservation partnerships.
They’re not alone. In 2020, Save the Redwoods League transferred 523 acres of coastal redwood forest to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council. Renamed Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ, meaning “Fish Run Place” in the Sinkyone language, the land is now managed under Indigenous conservation principles—a living rebuke to extractive land use and a model for ecological renewal.
Redwood National and State Parks lie within Yurok territory. In their stories, redwoods are not commodities. They are sacred beings. Traditional canoe carving, for instance, isn’t just craftsmanship—it’s ceremony. Selecting the right tree alone can take years. That knowledge still pulses through the community. And for the Yurok, forest health is river health. When the salmon go, so does a way of life.
The U.S. Forest Service has pledged to work with the Tribe to heal the fire-scarred lands of the Smith River Complex. The plans are ambitious: stabilizing riverbanks, replanting native species, replacing fire-damaged culverts, and removing hazardous debris. Diamond Creek, a key tributary, will see large woody debris and log structures reintroduced to mimic the natural complexity that salmon need to thrive.
It’s heavy. But it’s not hopeless.
There’s momentum—driven by memory, fueled by urgency. People are turning back to cultural knowledge, demanding policy change, and putting their hands in the soil to rebuild. It will take time. True restoration always does. But I believe in the possibility. I have to.
Because I’m not ready to say goodbye to the giants, and if enough of us pay attention, if enough of us speak up, maybe the Smith will run clear again.