California wildfires have been intensifying for decades. Now researchers are pointing to a grim new reality for the state’s iconic forests, with its coast redwoods, giant sequoias, Douglas firs and ponderosa pines.
The state has one of the world’s highest rates of wildfire-driven deforestation.
A new study, published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, finds that the destruction has grown “exponentially” since 2001, with no sign of slowing down.
“Those rates are right up there with the world’s leaders in fire-driven forest loss, like Russia, Portugal, Greece, Bolivia and even Canada,” said study author Hugh Safford, a forest and fire ecologist at the University of California, Davis, in a statement. “A couple more big-fire years like 2020 or 2021, and we could be looking at large-scale loss of conifer forests over wide swaths of the state.”
