CA Fire Destroys 10% Of World's Towering Sequoias: Study

CALIFORNIA, CA — During California's 2020 fire season, a single blaze devastated the southern Sierra Nevada, destroying 10 percent of the world's fully grown giant sequoias, according to a draft report from the National Park Service.

The Castle Fire scorched more than 174,000 acres and was responsible for killing these majestic trees, according to the report, which was obtained by the Visalia Times Delta.

A historic 4,257,863 acres of California burned last year in the state's largest fire season in modern history. As fire season was already in full swing last year, more than 12,000 lightning strikes hammered the state, igniting massive fires. The state also experienced its first "gigafire" in 2020: a burn area that exceeded 1 million acres.

The Castle Fire was one of the blazes ignited by a lightning strike.

After seeing aerial photos of the Freeman Grove, in the Sierra, Christy Brigham told the newspaper that it had been reduced to a moonscape. She is the lead author in the study and the chief of Resources Management and Science at Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

Researchers used satellite imagery and modeling from previous fires to estimate that between 7,500 and 10,000 of the towering trees died in the fire.

The Save the Redwoods League estimated last year that the Castle fire killed at least 80 monarchs on its property alone. Many of the trees that died ranged from 500 years old to well over 1,000 years old.

The damage to these long-standing trees is important to note because sequoias are typically fire-resistant.

"I cannot overemphasize how mind-blowing this is for all of us," Brigham said. These trees have lived for thousands of years. They’ve survived dozens of wildfires already."

Read more from the Visalia Times Delta: Shocking study finds 10% of world's giant sequoias killed by Castle Fire

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.

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. Unfortunately, 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 Los Angeles Times reported last year.

A threatening combination of the 2012-16 drought, rising climates and relentless fire seasons have wreaked havoc on dozens of these groves over the past decade.

Looking ahead, a perfect storm of worsening drought, rising temperatures and arid fuels indicates that the Golden State is in for another devastating wildfire season.

Gov. Gavin Newsom last month proposed a record $2 billion budget — double what he proposed in January — to get a head start on what could be another disastrous fire season, which may have already begun.

"You're already feeling the temperature shifts," he told reporters. "You already saw those red flag warnings, which are earlier in May than we've seen in many, many years because of the winds that are coming earlier. "

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

READ MORE: 4 Key Things To Know About CA's 2021 Wildfire Season