In some part of California , the fire from last year never stopped . The National Park Service said this week it found a giant sequoia tree still burning from last year ’s wildfire season , which was theworst on track record in the state .
The smolder sequoia was find in a remote section of the Sequoia National Park , where the lightning - ignited Castle Fire storm last September . Other tree in the region were still burning or smoking from the fireas recently as last month . They ’re essentially zombie tree fires , compatriot to Siberia ’s zombi spirit ardour thatoverwinter in peat - rich soiland have made newspaper headline in recent years .
“ The fact area are still smoulder and smoking from the 2020 Castle Fire demonstrate how dry the park is , ” Leif Mathiesen , assistant fire management military officer for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in key California , told the AP . “ With the low amount of snowfall and rain this year , there may be additional discoveries as spring transition into summer . ”
This photo provided by the National Park Service shows what appears to be a smoldering tree in Sequoia National Park, Calif., on 3 December 2024.Photo: Tony Caprio/National Park Service (AP)
sequoia are a eccentric of redwood tree , the iconic giants of the West Coast that can live up to 3,000 years andgrow up to 250 substructure ( 76 meters ) tall . They ’re also pretty hardy trees — you would be too if you had to come through several centuries — and have developed strong defence against normal fires , including thick bark and harbor the forest floor to prevent small competitor that could allow fire to spread from taking root . But California ’s drouth and the increasingly intense wildfire have been take a bell on them . In the midst of California ’s seven - year drought in the 2010s , some sequoiasexperienced leaf dieback — a rarefied phenomenon for the trees — while juiceless conditions and flame have made the treessusceptible to bark beetle infestations , increasing the odds of more destructive blast that can pass over out groves . scientist say that the Castle Fire alone in all likelihood vote down hundreds of trees last year .
“ This fire could have put a detectable scratch in the world ’s supply of big sequoia , ” Nate Stephenson , a enquiry ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey , toldthe LA Times in November .
And Mathiesen is right that this tree still burning is a bad sign for the residuum of the season . In March , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationpredictedthat more than half the nation may see drought conditions through the spring and summertime . Snowpack in the Sierras this wintertime neglect to live up to expectations , and California is already in dread drought straits . According to theDrought Monitor , more than 73 % of the state is in extreme or particular drought , up from roughly 13 % when the water yr began last October .
The increasing drought and still - smolder fires portend an ominous attack season to occur . And that ’s the last thing California needs;five of the state ’s six largest wildfires on recordhappened in 2020,at least 30 people were killed , and one of the megafires in the compass north of the res publica surpassed 1 million land , making it thefirst “ gigafire ” in advanced California history . Ananalysisof more than 100 subject establish that climate change played an “ univocal and pervasive ” use in make last class as spoiled as it was . This all fits with a larger pattern ; climate alteration isdriving the Southwestinto the worst megadrought in more than a millennium .
Whether it lead to more zombi fires in giant trees is n’t something scientist have simulate , but I ’m not incisively eager to see what nature will discombobulate at us next if the earth keeps heating up .
California
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