Around the fire-charred skeleton of a coyote bush on Angel Island, new life in the form of a green, wild cucumber vine curls up blackened branches reaching toward the sun.
Six months ago, fire – believed to have been accidentally started by campers – overwhelmed 380 of the island’s 740 acres, and burned trees, brush and years of duff that had accumulated on the ground.
Coast live oak, bay laurel, madrone, chaparral and toyon snapped and crackled as the flames rushed across the island, often so rapidly that some trees went largely undamaged, with only the understory burned away.
Now, the consensus is that it was not such a bad thing for the island.
“Fire clears things out,” said Casey Lee, Angel Island’s chief interpreter.
“It burns out the dead stuff, the poison oak, the understory. It creates spaces so things can start growing.”
And that’s what has transpired since the Oct. 12 fire.
