[Updated: Fri., May 15, 2026, 5:35pm]
A vegetation fire broke out on Santa Rosa Island Friday morning, spreading across the island’s southeast edge near Ford Point, a backcountry camping destination in Channel Islands National Park.
Park Ranger Mike Wilson said the fire was first reported by a plane flying overhead around 4:42 a.m. and was confirmed by park staff by 8:30 a.m.
At 3 p.m. on Friday, Wilson confirmed that federal wildland resources were en route to begin suppression efforts. He said there were no injuries reported, no evacuations, and no structures threatened as of Friday afternoon.
The fire had grown to 1,000 acres and was 0 percent contained as of 4:20 p.m., according to Cal Fire, which stated that crews were being shuttled in by boat.
Wilson noted that the official cause of the fire is still under investigation. However, an unidentified boater reportedly crashed his sailboat around the same area on Friday morning.
A video captured by nearby sport fishers shows dark splotches of burnt vegetation spreading across the island as huge plumes of smoke reach into the sky. The fire was still burning as of 3 p.m. on Friday.
Captain Jace Malone of New Hustler Sportfishing, who posted the video on Instagram, said they had a group of curious kids on the boat, “so I got close to check it out.”
“As we got close, I saw pieces of this guy’s sailboat kind of floating in the shallows over there; the sailboat mass sticking out of the rocks, and some other debris,” he recounted. “It was hard to see because of all the smoke and everything, but I could see someone [on the island] waving their hands and screaming and yelling.”
Malone said his boat could not traverse the shallow waters around the island, so he kept his distance and called the Coast Guard. A helicopter flew out to rescue the boater trapped on the burning island, but then returned to the station. The Coast Guard’s Channel Islands Station had no additional details. It was unclear whether the boater sustained any injuries.
“The fire got a pretty good spread,” Malone said on Friday afternoon. “Even this morning when we were there, it burned a pretty big area pretty quickly, and I still see a big plume of smoke, so I think it’s still a grilling fire.”
Certain areas of Santa Rosa Island have been under a temporary closure since January 1 to protect pupping seals and sea lions and nesting seabirds. That includes the beaches and dunes of China Camp and Cluster Point, and areas in between.
Whether any wildlife or other sensitive resources on the island have been killed or damaged due to the fire remains unclear.
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