The center was already closed to guests this summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The monks have been clearing brush from around the facility and running a sprinkler system they named Dharma rain, which helps keep the center s buildings wet, Sozan Miglioli, president of the San Francisco Zen Center, which operates the monastery, told the AP.
According to the AP, other firefighting monks later joined them from the San Francisco Zen Center and the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center.
The group of professionally trained firefighting monks have been busting blazes since 2008, when a wildfire spread to the Tassajara monastery. A dozen monks stayed behind to defend the center. Their efforts were chronicled in the book
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