Worsening Fires Threaten California's Prized Forests

Worsening Fires , Threaten California's , Prized Forests.

Fox News reports that intense fires in recent years have altered landscapes around the world, threatening animal life, harming water supplies and hindering the fight against climate change.

In California's Eldorado National Forest, damage from recent wildfires could be permanent.

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The state's changing climate has increased the frequency of intense fires, while drought has destroyed millions of trees or rendered them "susceptible to disease and pests," Fox News reports.

In the past five years, California has experienced 12 of its largest 20 wildfires.

According to a recent study, California has lost over 1,760 square miles of the state's tree cover since 1985.

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We're losing them at a rate... we can’t sustain, Brandon Collins, co-author and adjunct forestry professor at the University of California, Berkeley, via Fox News.

Areas where mixed conifer burned at high severity, those are all areas that are vulnerable to total forest loss, Christy Brigham, chief of resources management and science at Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, via Fox News.

In 2020 and 2021, wildfires wiped out almost one-fifth of the state's giant sequoias.

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Last week, the National Park Service launched a project to hopefully help the giant trees recover, which includes the agency's largest planting of seedlings in a single grove.

Fox News reports that a recent study of 334 Western wildfires found that conifer species were less likely to regenerate amid increasing fire severity.

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Fox News reports that a recent study of 334 Western wildfires found that conifer species were less likely to regenerate amid increasing fire severity.