Carbon Canyon Regional Park facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Carbon Canyon Regional Park
Carbon Canyon Park
The lake that is found in the center of the park.
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Location	Brea, California, United States
Area	124 acres
Owned by	County of Orange, California
Open	Fall – Winter: 7AM – 6PM Spring — Summer: 7AM – 9PM
Terrain	Hilly
Water	1 lake

The main sign of the park during the summer

The horse trail that leads into the park

Carbon Canyon Regional Park, often called Carbon Canyon Park, is a fun place to visit in Brea, California. It was created after a dam was built on Carbon Canyon Creek. This dam helped stop flooding in the area.

The park is connected to Chino Hills State Park on its east side. It also has a special forest of Redwood trees. These tall trees have had a tough time surviving because of the California droughts since 2010.

Park History

Before the 1880s, the land where the park is now was a small town called Olinda. The area became a park only after a dam was built on Carbon Canyon Creek. This dam was important for preventing floods.

Park Facilities

Carbon Canyon Regional Park offers many cool things to do. You can find these facilities here:

Redwood Forest

Inside the park, there's a special three-acre forest of Coastal Sequoia redwood trees. These trees are super tall and amazing! Many animals live here, like birds, rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks.

The forest faced dangers from a big fire in 2008. It also struggled during the California drought from 2010 to 2016.

Park staff have worked with experts from UC Irvine and Disneyland to help the forest. They put in a new system to keep the trees healthy during dry times. Even with these efforts, one tree had to be cut down in 2015 because it was very sick.

Park Activities

Many people come to Carbon Canyon Regional Park for picnics or to celebrate holidays. The hiking trail that leads to the Redwood forest is very popular with hikers.

The park is also a favorite spot for cross country teams. They use it for training and competitions.

Helping Fight Fires

An OCFA helicopter extracting water from the lake in the park.

The lake in the park is very important for fighting fires. Firefighting helicopters often use the lake to fill up with water. They then drop this water on fires in the area.

A great example of this was during a big fire in 2008. This fire threatened the eastern part of Brea, including nearby communities and Carbon Canyon Regional Park itself. The lake helped a lot in stopping the fire from spreading.

Lake Remodeling

The lake in the middle of the park was rebuilt in 2014. This was because the water quality was not good, and the lake couldn't hold enough water. Because of this, OC Parks couldn't stock the lake with fish.

Work to rebuild the lake started on July 14, 2014. The lake had to be completely emptied. Then, big machines removed about 9,500 cubic yards of silt. Silt is like fine mud or dirt that collects at the bottom of a lake. This silt had built up over 17 years from rainwater runoff and wildfires.

Removing the silt finished in October 2014. After that, the lake was refilled with fresh water. Fish were put back into the lake about a month later.