Hundreds To 1,000+ Sequoias Killed By Fires; At Least 80 Were "Monarchs" - 500 To 1,000 Years Old

[hatrack]

One of the monster wildfires birthed by California’s August lightning blitz, the Castle fire burned through portions of roughly 20 giant sequoia groves on the western slopes of the Sierra, the only place on the planet they naturally grow. Sequoia experts may never know how many of the world’s most massive trees died in the Castle fire, but judging by what they have seen so far, they say the number is certainly in the hundreds — and could easily top 1,000.

“This fire could have put a noticeable dent in the world’s supply of big sequoias,” said Nate Stephenson, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. The Castle fire is just the latest in a string of wildfires since 2015 that have fried monarch sequoias — trees that nature designed to not only withstand fire but thrive with it. They are armored with thick bark. Their high branches are out of reach of most flames. Their cones — no larger than a chicken egg — release seeds when exposed to a burst of heat. The problem is that the wildfires chewing through sequoia groves these days are not the kind that the long-lived giants evolved with.

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Old sequoias can survive even if just 5% of their crowns remain green and unscorched by a fire’s heat. There was no green on the sequoias Shive counted on the ridge west of Jordan Peak. Their broccoli tops were roasted. One giant was decapitated, the upper trunk and branches strewn at its base in a tangled heap. There were more bleak scenes elsewhere. The league estimates that on its property alone, the Castle fire killed at least 80 monarchs, ranging in age from 500 years old to well over 1,000 years old.

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“At that point, we started to think it could get into some of our sequoia groves,” Brigham said. “But I still had the mental model that these trees are very fire adapted.… This is going to be OK from the sequoia perspective.” That notion began to fade as she heard more about the Castle fire’s erratic behavior. Then, last month, the parks’ fire ecologist, Tony Caprio, sent Brigham an aerial drone photo of a badly burned grove called Homers Nose. Caprio had marked it with little red dots: They were giants whose entire crowns had been incinerated. “To see those giant sequoia, monarch, blackened toothpicks was a gut punch,” Brigham recalled. When big sequoias die in a wildfire, it is usually because heat has scorched all their needles, which are still on the tree. This was different. All-consuming flame had turned the giants into sequoia skeletons.

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https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-11-16/sierra-nevada-giant-sequoias-killed-castle-fire

[Wicked Blue]

1. This is so damned sad

So many forests logged or burned, so many trees destroyed , so many animals killed...and all of them helpless to defend themselves against human activity and human-caused climate change.

[SheltieLover]

2. Heartbreaking!