CA Loses Hundreds Of Giant, Ancient Sequoias To The Castle Fire

ALDER CREEK GROVE, CA — Hundreds of giant sequoia trees marred with burnt trunks and broken branches still stand in the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. But hundreds more were lost to the devastating Castle Fire, which ripped through nearly 20 giant sequoia groves in the Alder Creek Grove area, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

The fire charred more than 174,000 acres of land in portions of the Sequoia National Forest, Giant Sequia National Monument, Sequoia Naitonal Park and beyond, according to the United States Forest Service.

The Blaze was among one of the many triggered by a series of August lightning storms which kicked off California's largest ever wildfire season, which burned over 4.1 million acres statewide.

And while sequoia experts may never be able to calculate how many of these massive trees died in the Castle Fire, some say that number could top 1,000, the LA Times reported.

“This fire could have put a noticeable dent in the world’s supply of big sequoias,” Nate Stephenson, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, told the LA Times.

Sequoia trees are equipped with a durable armor of bark, designed to weather wildfires and even thrive within them. Their cones also release seeds when exposed to fire. But a threatening combination of the 2012-16 drought, rising climates and relentless fire seasons have wreaked havoc on hundreds of these trees over the past decade.

A sequoia's crown can typically reach far above a fire line and can survive a forest fire if its crown remains just 5 percent green and unburned, the LA Times reported. But there wasn't any green left on the skeletal trees found on the ridge west of Jordan Peak after the Castle Fire had wrought disaster on the area, the Times also reported.

The Save the Redwoods League estimated that on its prively owned property, the Castle fire killed at least 80 monarchs, ranging from 500 years old to well over 1,000 years old, the LA Times reported.

Read more from the Los Angeles Times: Hundreds of towering giant sequoias killed by the Castle fire — a stunning loss