The Santa Rosa Island Fire was expected to reach 100 percent containment on Thursday, June 4, after burning through 18,379 acres — more than 30 percent of the island — over the course of 19 days.
But while the fire has been contained, the work is far from complete. Santa Rosa Island, the second largest in the Channel Islands National Park, will remain closed to visitors until at least June 30 due to what the National Park Service has described as the “human-caused wildfire,” which remains under investigation .
Containment simply means that firefighters have established control lines around the fire’s perimeter, officials said. Hazardous conditions can persist for weeks or months, existing both inside and outside the burned area — soils are unstable, trees are weakened, infrastructure is damaged, rocks are susceptible to falling, landscapes are eroding, and trails are altered.