Scientists collect data about a year after the 2016 Cedar Fire. (R. Wayman/UC Davis) California's drought of 2012-2016 killed millions of trees in the Sierra Nevada mostly by way of a bark beetle epidemic leaving a forest canopy full of dry needles.
Decades of research-based knowledge about the history, physical characteristics and vegetation in California annual grassland, oak-woodland and chaparral ecosystems has been consolidated in a new nine-part PDF document.
Reposted from the UCANR News In 2020, 9,000 fires scorched more than 4 million acres of California, a record-breaking year, reported Alejandra Borunda in National Geographic.
A post-fire area of the Sierra Nevada mountains with negligible conifer regeneration. (Joseph Stewart, UC Davis/USGS) In the aftermath of megafires that devastated forests of the western United States, attention turns to whether forests will regenerate on their own or not.
