By Luke Kelly, University of Melbourne, Tim Curran, Lincoln University, and Sophie Wilkinson, McMaster University
The giant sequoias of California are some of the largest, oldest trees on Earth. Stretching 100 metres to the sky, some have a girth that could only be spanned by 20 friends holding hands. But in the last two years, fierce wildfires in California have killed an unprecedented number of these endangered trees. The fires in 2021 alone killed as many as 3,600 giant sequoias, which is approximately 5 percent of large trees in the population. The solution would seem to be to prevent fires, but sequoia groves thrive when small-scale fires pass through. Exclusion of fire can be just as harmful as too much fire.
Globally, more than 4,400 species face threats from patterns of fire that have been modified by human activity. Increasingly, researchers are exploring how climate change and land use are changing patterns of fire and what can be done to get more of the ‘right’ kind of fire.
