Six years after being destroyed by fire, beloved Outdoor School at Rancho Alegre nears reopening

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. – More than six years after the Whittier Fire destroyed The Outdoor School at Rancho Alegre, the beloved environmental education program is close to reopening to students.

The Outdoor School program is operated by the Boys Scouts of America Los Padres Council on its Rancho Alegre property, and has hosted thousands of students annually for decades, including those from the Tri-Counties area and beyond.

According to the Los Padres Council, the school is nearing the end of its long reconstruction project and is gearing up welcome students back in April 2024.

"We are really excited to be able to get the kids back to the property back here, hiking and learning in the outdoor classroom again for the first time since the fire," said Amanda Chick, The Outdoor School Director. "This program is just so impactful on their lives. I have had people in our community tell me, I remember when I attended The Outdoor School, that was my favorite field trip we ever did for my whole school career."

The Outdoor School is located on the San Marcos Pass, just above Highway 154, across from Cachuma Lake.

In July 2017, the Whittier Fire tore through the 217 acre site and destroyed almost 50 buildings, representing just about 90% of the entire camp.

"This camp was basically decimated," said Glen Goddard, Los Padres Council Program/Facilities Director. "There were 47, 48 buildings that were just wiped out. It was very disheartening to the scouting community as well as to The Outdoor School community because we lost an important part of our lives that was that's here, so it's been great to see this whole thing come back."

Since the fire, the Los Padres Council has worked through many difficult challenges to rebuild the camp from the ground.

"We've had a lot of obstacles," said Goddard. "The pandemic really slowed us down, but now we're ramping up for getting youth back here in the camp, and that's what this property is for us for, more youth. I'm very excited to see it happen."

Covering the cost of the construction has been a combination of $9 million in insurance funds, plus an addition $5 million that has been raised through the Los Padres Council's Phoenix Campaign.

"We're happy that the community has supported us to make it this far because we realize and they realize what an important asset this is to the community," said Goddard. "I'm very excited to see kids come into this camp. That's what this place is for. It's meant for youth to be here, exposed to the outdoors, learning new recreational skills, learning about the wildlife in the area, learning how to work with each other, whether it's in the in a dorm situation, where they're learning how to keep the dorms clean among themselves, whether it's hiking together. All of that is such an important part of what we offer here."

In preparation of the 2024 opening, Chick was recently hired as the school director and has been in the position on the property since September.

"In those two months I've been busy doing a lot of different things, working on updating our curriculum, basically rewriting the curriculum from what we had in the past to be just a little bit more updated, get the kids to have a few more different activities to do," said Chick. "I've been working on updating our website, which hopefully will be done soon. It'll be a little bit more updated with current information. I've been doing a lot of outreach to all the schools in the area, letting them know that we are back open and accepting schools for our spring season, and letting them know that we're open for next year as well."

Chick emphasized the reopening of The Outdoor School will be a significant benefit to the thousands of students who are expected to take part in its program annually.

"Kids will be going on five different curriculum hikes throughout the week," said Chick. "Those subjects are they'll learn about geology of the area, they'll learn about the native plants of the area, the native animals. They'll do what is my favorite hike of the week, which is our night hike, where they'll get to learn about a astronomy, they'll get to learn about the nocturnal animals, and they will also get to learn about the Chumash culture who lived on this land, which I think is really important, that we get to bring in the people that lived on this land before us, and how they use this land, they just get to learn all these some subjects that they're learning in school, and how it can connect to the real world that we're living in, and it's not just something they learn in the classroom."

She also pointed out that for many students, the school represents the first opportunity in their lives to experience time away from the city and staying overnight in an outdoor setting.

"Just being able to get the kids off their phones, off their computers out of the classroom, and just being able to explore this huge, beautiful property we have and learning about," said Chick. "So many different things, about the outdoors, about themselves, about working with each other, about working with other kids from other schools. It's something that they will get to remember for years and decades of their lives, and maybe even for their whole life are like, Oh, I remember that one time where I got to go out that Outdoor School."

While The Outdoor School is set to reopen in spring 2024, Goddard said the Scout camp is expected to open sometime in 2025.

He added the current construction is just the first of three planned phased for the complete rebuild of Rancho Alegre.

"Phase Two is we want to build our Friendship Lodge, which will give us an opportunity to have more people meet and do training there," said Goddard. "We also want to rebuild our medical lodge. That's another part of it that we we postponed till now. So we're ready to get that going, and then there will be Phase Three, which will be more development over on the other side of the mountain behind me here that we want to put some more buildings there, so we have full use of the property on a year round basis."

For more information on The Outdoor School, click here.