The number of trees in California’s Sierra Nevada forests killed by drought, a bark beetle epidemic and higher temperatures has dramatically increased since past year, raising fears they will fuel catastrophic wildfires and endanger people’s lives, officials said Wednesday.
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The number of dead trees in California’s forests dramatically increased in just one year’s time.
Not only would that eliminate or shrink some forests, driving them northward or uphill toward cooler climates, it could also force increasingly overworked firefighting agencies to juggle the additional routine task of managing dead trees.
The new figures are based on a May aerial survey assessment that found millions of new dead trees across the state.
The equipment is being used as parched southern California landscapes explode in the types of summertime flames that wouldn’t normally be expected until August. The problem is more pronounced in Southern and Central California south of the Eldorado National Forest, but foresters say they’ve seen some signs of it spreading north.
Trees are dying at a scary rate. In many drought-ravaged areas, there hasn’t been sufficient water for tree roots to siphon. “The issue now is there are a tremendous amount of trees already weakened when the beetles come in, and they can’t fend them off”.
It could take California four years to recover from the most severe drought on record, even if the next several winters bring above-normal snowfall to the Sierra Nevada, researchers said Tuesday releasing a study.
While some officials are anxious that the dead trees will increase a risk of wildfires, many environmentalists say that burning the tree debris will release too much carbon dioxide and prefer that the they are left to decompose. Jerry Brown to call a state of emergency during last year’s fire season.
But that’s just a drop in the bucket compared with what the Forest Service believes it needs to adequately protect the nation’s forest from devastating wildfires. The Forest Service said fire management consumed more than half of its budget past year.
“Tree dies-offs of this magnitude are unprecedented and increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires that puts property and lives at risk”, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stated in the release. According to the US Forest Service, trees are dying at an even more astonishing rate than they were last summer, creating fuel for what will nearly certainly be the worst wildfire season in memory.
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“Forcing the Forest Service to pay for massive wildfire disasters out of its preexisting fixed budget instead of from an emergency fund like all other natural disasters means there is not enough money left to do the very work that would help restore these high mortality areas”, he said. “We must fund wildfire suppression like other natural disasters in the country”, Vilsack’s statement continues.
