History

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August Happenings 2025

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Save your spot! Wednesday, August 6, from 7-8:30pm. Join Board member Jerry Kent in an Arts & Culture Talks Series, hosted by the Berkeley City Club. He will share some of the history of the Canyon and the work of the Conservancy. RSVP to our Fall Bird Walk, Sunday, September 28 starting at 7:30am. Join birders and bird enthusiasts and look for resident and migrant birds in Claremont Canyon.

Thirtieth Anniversary of the Firestorm

This fall marked the 30th anniversary of the 1991 Tunnel Fire, also known as the Oakland Hills Firestorm. This devastating wildfire began on October 19, 1991 as a small brush fire that was quickly put out, only to revive again the next morning with a surge of strong Diablo wind. Embers still hot from the previous day flared into flames that whipped through dry brush into pines and other dry vegetation and then to homes surrounded by eucalyptus groves at the wildland-urban edge, completely overwhelming fire personnel tending the scene.

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Evacuation on my mind, by Sue Piper, Chair Oakland Firesafe Council

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Now, 30 years after the 1991 Firestorm and three years after the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people on the one road out of Paradise, evacuation is on many people’s minds. The problem, as I learned in 1991, is that in a crisis, you think with your gut. Oh, if we only had opportunities to practice evacuation many times over so that when the real threat appears, our minds know exactly what to do.

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Making a difference, Conservancy President Tim Wallace

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Tim Wallace considers himself a “Yes man”—not a person that caves into other people's demands, but the kind that says, “Yes” to life.

Tim just celebrated 15 years (on and off—mostly on) as president of the Claremont Canyon Conservancy, "Working with volunteers we have helped make the canyon more fire-safe, more natural, and more accessible by trails.”

Tim has been involved with natural resources all his life: first as rancher and logger, then later in academics. He has been at UC Berkeley since 1963. "I've worked at the White House on agricultural matters and was Director of California's Department of Food and Agriculture. I've done consulting abroad in Europe, Latin America, Africa, the Far East, and New Zealand and Australia."

Report of the Grizzly Peak Fire from Glen Schneider

We had some big excitement last week. Because of the Grizzly Peak Fire on Wednesday afternoon, we had to cancel our workday. We did get back to Skyine on Sunday and almost finished with Scattergrass in the Bay Grove.  Perhaps one more good session will finish that off  .  .  . 

Botanists tend to love a fire, because the aftermath is so fascinating. Seeds not seen in decades may sprout.  In the early days of California botany, when Jepson was at Cal in the early 1900's, he and others found scores of interesting natives on the slopes of Grizzly Peak. Will they return?  How will UC manage the burn area (let's hope they do nothing besides remove the Eucs and Pines)?

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An Invitation to burn, by Tamia Marg

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An Invitation to burn, by Tamia Marg

The Claremont Canyon landscape and its uses have changed dramatically over the last century. From the 1800's through the first few decades of the 20th century, the East Bay hills were primarily grasslands with trees and brush growing only in canyon draws. Much of Gwin Canyon, a tributary on the south side of Claremont Canyon, was planted with Monterey Pines (Pinus radiata), a widely established practice in the hills to beautify the land for housing developments in the early Twentieth Century. That these trees were fast-growing tinder in the landscape became evident after every subsequent hill wildfire.

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Taking out the eucs, by Marilyn Goldhaber

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Over 9,000 eucalyptus trees have been removed from Claremont Canyon since 2001 with thousands more due to come down in the next 2-4 years. Careful monitoring and follow-up of the logged areas this time around should assure that resprouts and new seedlings will not overwhelm the land, force out the native flora and fauna, and present an unacceptable wildfire hazard to the canyon and nearby homes.

Some people undoubtedly will miss the tall trees which have held their place in the canyon for nearly a century. Were they less flammable by nature and less aggressive in their growth, wildland managers might be able to deal with them differently.  But such was not the case for Eucalyptus globulus, or blue gum, a species imported from Australia for commercial reasons over a hundred years ago.

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