The Reading Fire began with a lightning strike in 2012 and quickly became a much larger and more severe fire. After years of fire suppression had allowed ground and vertical fuels to build up, the blaze ultimately covered 28,079 acres after spreading beyond the park onto the adjacent Lassen National Forest, as per a report by the National Park Service.
The damage did not end when the flames were gone. The severely disturbed landscape created new opportunities for invasive plants such as bull thistle to spread, while native plants faced a much slower recovery.
