The Windy Fire blazes through the Long Meadow Grove of giant sequoia trees in California’s Sequoia National Forest on Sept. 21, 2021. Credit: David McNew/Getty Images
Giant sequoia groves in California’s Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks that were extensively burned in the
megafires of 2020 and 2021 produced numbers of seedlings that were so “drastically low” in some areas that they may not naturally regenerate, according to two new studies by government scientists.
One of the studies, by researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center and published in the journal Ecosphere in March, tried to assess the “likelihood of natural recovery” in four Sequoia groves and found that “seedling densities fell far below the average density measured after prescribed fires” that were intentionally set to maintain grove regeneration and health.
In the second study, published last month in Forest Ecology and Management, the researchers developed “seedling reference densities” based on post-fire data from eight groves that burned in 26 different fires in the national parks from 1969 to 2016 to identify areas that might require planting by forest managers. In one “case-study sequoia grove” burned in one of the recent high-severity wildfires, the study found seedling densities that were “significantly (and dramatically) lower” than historic norms, “suggesting inadequate post-fire reproduction.”
The studies found that extreme wildfires have killed up to 20 percent of the world’s mature giant sequoias since 2015, with a majority of the trees dying in three wildfires in 2020 and 2021. The sequoias are the largest trees in the world and among the oldest, and only grow on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California, according to the National Park Service
The Windy Fire blazes through the Long Meadow Grove of giant sequoia trees in California’s Sequoia National Forest on Sept. 21, 2021. Credit: David McNew/Getty Images
Giant sequoia groves in California’s Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks that were extensively burned in the megafires of 2020 and 2021 produced numbers of seedlings that were so “drastically low” in some areas that they may not naturally regenerate, according to two new studies by government scientists.
One of the studies, by researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center and published in the journal Ecosphere in March, tried to assess the “likelihood of natural recovery” in four Sequoia groves and found that “seedling densities fell far below the average density measured after prescribed fires” that were intentionally set to maintain grove regeneration and health.
In the second study, published last month in Forest Ecology and Management, the researchers developed “seedling reference densities” based on post-fire data from eight groves that burned in 26 different fires in the national parks from 1969 to 2016 to identify areas that might require planting by forest managers. In one “case-study sequoia grove” burned in one of the recent high-severity wildfires, the study found seedling densities that were “significantly (and dramatically) lower” than historic norms, “suggesting inadequate post-fire reproduction.”
The studies found that extreme wildfires have killed up to 20 percent of the world’s mature giant sequoias since 2015, with a majority of the trees dying in three wildfires in 2020 and 2021. The sequoias are the largest trees in the world and among the oldest, and only grow on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California, according to the National Park Service
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