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Leaves are brown, bark is black and dirt is sooty or ashen-gray. Those aren't the typical fall colors found at McConnell Arboretum & Botanical Gardens in Redding, but they're part of the picture this year.

A wildfire sprang to life Aug. 26 on Sulphur Creek Hill, hopped over North Market Street and raced through part of the arboretum at Turtle Bay Exploration Park. Some plants were incinerated, others scorched and a few squashed by fire-fighting equipment.

Wind pushed the 130-acre fire, which came within 20 yards of the Sundial Bridge, onto the northwest side of the arboretum. Firefighters responded quickly and most of the arboretum didn't burn. Turtle Bay officials say 20 percent of the developed gardens were damaged and approximately a third of the arboretum's natural oak woodland burned.

"It could have been so much worse," said Lisa Endicott, horticulture manager at Turtle Bay. "It could have taken the whole savannah. It could have taken all of the gardens."

The 200-acre arboretum is a natural area along the Sacramento River filled with oaks, cottonwoods, manzanita and other native plants. Fenced within the arboretum are the botanical gardens, which require admission to view. They include California natives; hardy plants from Chile, Australia, South Africa and other countries; and other plants in display gardens.

The arboretum's mission is education, and the August fire offers plenty of lessons. Because the arboretum is in the heart of Redding and has a trail that loops through it, it will be easy for people to see what happened and how the area heals.

Endicott toured the fire-damaged area with Carl Skinner, a fire ecology expert with the U.S. Forest Service, and Gary Nakamura, a forestry specialist with University of California's Center for Forestry. They were encouraging about the ability of area to bounce back.

"Overall, I'm very hopeful," Endicott said. "I expect to see recovery of the majority of these plants."

Skinner, project leader at the Pacific Southwest Research Station in Redding, said the fire mostly stayed on the ground and moved quickly through parched grass and the duff of dry leaves and pine needles. Most trees were scorched rather than engulfed. They should recover.

"In general, most of the larger oaks and the big pines will do fine," he said.

"It was not a very intense fire," said Nakamura, who works out of the UC Coopertive Extension office in Redding. "Leaves turned brown because of the heat, meaning that the flame lengths were very short."

However, he noted that a fire can burn much hotter in some areas than others. And some trees, depending on their size and type, are more sensitive to heat than others.

The fire came right to the fenced botanical gardens and then jumped over them, burning untamed areas on both the north and south sides. The gardens' perimeter plants burned, but plants in the interior were spared.

Endicott said when visitors see the fire damage on both sides, the common reaction is, "Wow."

Embers fell on the gardens and ignited bark mulch, but the place was filled with firefighters and equipment. Turtle Bay staff members grabbed shovels and hoses to squelch spot fires too.

Endicott said dry mulch that had recently been put on garden beds ignited the most easily. But mulch in the gardens did not flash to flames as eagerly as the duff in the natural areas of the arboretum.

Plants in the gardens are irrigated, so they were much more resistant to igniting than the natural vegetation, Skinner noted.

"They water those plants and they have a lot of moisture in them," he said.

Rosemary, mint, lavenders and other plants with lots of oils were the most prone to burning, Endicott noted.

She said approximately 250 plants in the gardens were damaged.

A showpiece restio, about 9 feet high and 12 feet wide, was taken down by the fire.

"It was this huge, gorgeous, gorgeous evergreen plant," Endicott said.

She figured it was dead, but after contacting botanical experts in Australia, the plant's homeland, she's now hopeful the charred plant, which has been cut back to ground level, will rise from the ashes.

Several burned trees were deemed dangerous and have been removed. Endicott said a few others may join that goners list, including a huge gray pine that smoldered for two days in the gardens. But for the most part, Turtle Bay is taking a wait-and-see approach.

"You shouldn't give up on something just because it looks bad," Endicott said.

Many of the damaged plants are expected to put out a flush of new growth in the spring.

A lot of the seared trees are dropping their toasted leaves. Skinner says that's a good sign. "They're still alive and getting rid of the dead leaves," he said.

The lessons about fire recovery being revealed on the arboretum can apply to other areas of the north state where people experienced fire on their property this summer.

Nakamura said it's not a big deal if a tree's outer bark is dark and sooty — that's not living tissue. It's the living inner bark that you don't see that's critical to survival. The only way to know how extensive damage is would be to strip away the outer bark — and that would kill the tree.

It's best not to rush to judgment. Nakamura noted that a group of scorched oaks along Airport Road that appeared dead after the October 1999 Jones Fire leafed out the following spring.

"Just because it's black doesn't mean it's dead. If it's not a hazard to you, don't cut it," he said.

Endicott said some burned grasses at the arboretum pushed out new greenery right away. "Some of the deergrass came back two or three days after the fire."

"I think all the bunch grasses, the native bunch grasses, will recover quite well," Nakamura said.

California plants are adapted to wildfire and many will reseed or resprout with vigor after a fire. Nakamura said fire clears out dead plant material, changing it into nutrients that are absorbed by the soil and taken in by plants.

But invasive plants can get a boost too. It takes more than fire to discourage them.

"In areas that burned, we will get on the invasives as much as possible," Endicott said.

Laura Christman can be reached at 225-8222 or lchristman@redding.com.