Gifford Fire closed SLO County water park at height of season. Now it needs help
The Gifford Fire forced a fixture of summer fun in the South County to close early this month — and it likely won’t be back up and running again this season, its owner said.
When the mandatory evacuation order for the Lopez Lake area came in at around 4 p.m. on Thursday last week, Mustang Waterpark and the associated Vista Lago Adventure Park were still entertaining around 75 guests, assuming it would be business as usual barring any change in the fire.
Park co-owner Bill Thoming said though park staff were keeping an eye on the Gifford Fire all week as it advanced toward Arroyo Grande, they initially didn’t expect a shutdown.
However, as the fire raged through rural San Luis Obispo County over the past week, forcing the San Luis Obispo County Parks Department to close Lopez Lake to all reservations through Aug. 21, it became clear that the small seasonal business will be in for a difficult off-season, Thoming said.
“We really rely on that traffic of the people that are already there and camping with their families and whatnot, so that’s been really tough,” Thoming said. “We’re only open about 80 days a year, and when you shut out almost the entire month of August — which is kind of what it’s looking like so far — it’s definitely a big burden.”
How to support shuttered Lopez Lake business
Thoming said there’s very little chance Mustang Waterpark or Vista Lago Adventure Park will be able to open through the end of the summer season, putting a serious dent in the business’ finances.
Originally opened in 1978, the water park and ropes course business is the only business operating in the Lopez Lake Recreation Area, with the exception of the marina and camp store that stores and supplies boats, Thoming said.
Thoming said the park was fortunate to avoid major damage so far, only seeing a light dusting of ash from the smoke cloud as of Thursday, but it will lose money from unused food stock and some plumbing work.
“We just got our food order on Wednesday, so we lost about $6,000 in food because the power went out there,” Thoming said. “All of our freezers were full and ready for basically the remainder of our season, and it looks like we’ve lost all of it.”
During the summer, the water park employs around 60 staffers, mostly high schoolers and Cal Poly students, while the high ropes course at Vista Lago employs another 15 people, he said.
Heavily reliant on its roughly 80-day seasonal window to turn a profit, the business will be hurt by losing a month of potential business to the fire, he said.
While a permanent closure is unlikely, Thoming said he and his business partners Scott and Stacy Schirmer and his wife April Thoming are focused on doing everything necessary to keep the park afloat until the next season, including possibly taking out new mortgages on their homes.
“The park doesn’t garner any income from Sept. 1 to roughly early May, when people start buying their season passes or tickets or renting cabanas or things of that nature for the upcoming summer,” Thoming said. “It’s really tough that there’s not a whole lot you can do with a seasonal business like that to generate some income to help get to that next season.”
Thoming said some of the best ways to support the business through to the next season include purchasing season passes for 2026 and gift cards, which will help the business stay on top of bills until it can take guests again.
“A lot of people have reached out to us via social media and direct, checking in on us, asking how we’re doing, which we really appreciate,” Thoming said. “We’re community-driven — we really have personal relationships with a lot of our guests all season long.”
“We feel bad for a lot of those people that spend a lot of time with us in August,” Thoming added. “We just really appreciate the support and the reaching out from the community.”
