California has lost over 1,760 square miles—nearly 7%—of its tree cover since 1985, according to a recent study.
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Dead pines, firs, and cedars stretch as far as the eye can see. Fire burned so hot that soil was still barren in places more than a year later. Granite boulders were charred and flaked from the inferno. Long, narrow indentations marked the graves of fallen logs that vanished in smoke.
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After wildfires in 2020 and 2021 wiped out up to about a fifth of all giant sequoias — once considered almost fireproof — the National Park Service last week embarked on a controversial project to help the mighty trees recover with its largest planting of seedlings a single grove.
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archive link: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/wJQT6
Maybe if they did controlled fire like the native did, they would have less huge fire…
Now I’m curious. How did natives control fire?
By doing controlled burns. You basically light an area on fire while it is safe to do so, and that burns up the dry material in that area. Ergo- less combustible material in times of drought.
Also, it helps clear old trees so that new trees can grow. (Additionally redwoods require fire to sprout, iirc)
I remember every year, there was a farm close to where I lived that would grow cover crops for winter, and by spring they would be dried and dead, and for the better part of the week they went field by field with the fire department and about 40 people, and burned all the dead cover crops off.
I’d love it if we could do a controlled burn of the copse of trees behind my house, the underbrush is thick enough I haven’t seen a deer come or go in years, and the creeping vines are choking many of the trees out. A few are clearly dead, more are dying, and I’m pretty sure a burn that killed the brush and vines would help the trees a lot, but I’m not a controlledburnologist.
That’s called slash and burn, and it’s unsustainable.
I don’t think deer care about brush, either. I’ve seen plenty of deer trails through the brush.
And that stopped because we stopped doing controlled grass burns (EDIT: apparently the proper name in English is Stubble burning)? Or are these separate topics?
Federal policy has to change first, because most of California’s forests are on federal land and subject to federal management practices.