California can’t replant its forests fast enough to keep up with wildfires
California can’t replant its forests fast enough to keep up with wildfires
California can’t replant its forests fast enough to keep up with wildfires
California’s wildfires are destroying forests faster than the state can replant them, and federal cuts are making the gap worse.
Climate change and more than a century of overzealous fire suppression are now fueling wildfires so severe that they’re wiping out the very forests that need fire to thrive — leaving iconic landscapes at risk of turning into brush and scrub, permanently.
Over the past quarter century, high-severity wildfires have burned 2.3 million acres of California’s forestland so completely that the trees are unlikely to return on their own — according to a working draft of the state’s new reforestation strategy obtained by CalMatters.