
2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California's oldest state park - apsec112
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/2-000-year-old-redwoods-survive-wildfire-california-s-oldest-n1237949
======
gdubs
I was elated to read this, and then disappointed at the comments here. It
seems to be feeding an argument of “see, fires are natural and these trees are
old - Climate Change is a fear-mongering hoax!”

Firestorms are not the meandering fires that have long been a natural part of
ecosystems. Ladder fires — where fire leaves the forest floor, up to the
crowns, creating a wall of fire that can change weather patterns — are
incredibly powerful events. Despite how much fire these trees have survived
over their long lives, they dodged a bullet here.

As an environmentalist, seeing that these trees won this battle is stirring.
But it’s cavalier to assume they’ll win the next fight, or the one after that.

Fires are becoming more intense, more frequent, more damaging. Part of this is
because the yearly burns the Native American Indians did to maintain the
habitat have gone the way of history. Part of it is due to natural drought
cycles. Part of it is our increasing development of the urban-wilderness
interface. And part of it is climate change. The world is getting hotter, and
drier. We are in the midst of a mass extinction event. These trees survived
today, but will we do anything to help them survive this century?

~~~
eloff
The world is getting hotter, but only parts of it are getting drier. Parts of
it are getting wetter. Overall it will get wetter. For each 1C rise in
temperature, the air can hold about 7% [1] more water vapor. Warmer air above
warmer oceans will pick up more water and dump it over much the same places as
it does now, although the prevailing winds and ocean currents changing will
also change that up.

I think the effect will mostly be that dry places will get drier and wet
places will get wetter. Which is a disagreeable change, to be sure.

[1] [http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr_oa/c047p123.pdf](http://www.int-
res.com/articles/cr_oa/c047p123.pdf)

~~~
Justsignedup
Thats a bad way to look at it.

A better way:

The moisture is being sucked out of some places and falling to others. So one
area is becoming barren, and another is being flooded. This means a few
things:

\- It is harder to farm. Can't farm when it is flooded, can't farm when it is
barren

\- It is harder to keep fixed cities because the climate changes. Imagine
having to move NYC every 10 years. It is far worse when people don't have good
infrastructure.

\- The displacement of people will make the syrian refugee crisis look pale in
comparison to what is coming.

\- Entire ecologies being destroyed is gonna be an economic hit we can barely
comprehend.

\- Extreme weather is another effect. Example being freezing temperatures mid-
bloom. Or a hot week mid winter. Crops grow and freeze causing entire crop
failures.

And fires are only gonna get worse. The fact that right now this tree survived
is great. But will it in 10 years?

~~~
throwaway1777
Overly pessimistic. We have irrigation, dams, and drainage, we’re not totally
beholden to the natural rainfall cycle anymore for farming. As far as coastal
cities go, we should be investing more in sea walls, but I think technology
can help solve these problems too as it has so far in Miami and Venice. If it
eventually gets too expensive to maintain that will happen gradually, not like
a sudden refugee crisis.

~~~
stingrae
we're not too protected either. What percentage of the US's food gets grown in
CA? [https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/27/california-farms-
prod...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/27/california-farms-produce-a-
lot-of-food-but-what-and-how-much-might-surprise-
you/#:~:text=While%20California%20produces%2013%20percent,more\)%20for%20the%20following%20crops).

The solution to California's droughts isn't just dams. You can't build a dam
large enough to hold enough water for going multiple years without rainfall
and the aquifers, which bank water in the ground were deeply depleted in the
last drought.

------
DoreenMichele
Redwoods not only survive the fires, they tend to proliferate afterwards.
After lesser trees have been cleared out by the fires, redwood seedlings take
root.

Redwoods also thrive in low rain areas that are prone to fog because they
benefit from the fog in a way that other trees do not.

I once suggested redwoods as an alternate or additional metaphor for
giftedness re Stephanie Tolan's "Is it a cheetah?"

[https://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm](https://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm)

My idea didn't get any traction, but I think we need more mental models than
the "cheetah" one because that not only implicitly suggests that gifted kids
are always fast, it also implicitly suggests that they are dangerous
predators. While it is true that intelligence can make you a danger, I would
like to see myriad metaphors proliferate and redwoods are at the top of my
list as a metaphor I would like to see proliferate.

~~~
hardmath123
I believe the heat of a wildfire is literally the trigger for the cone to open
up and release the redwood's seeds! (I don't know the exact mechanism for
this, though.)

~~~
DoreenMichele
I don't know. I know there is a pine that does that, but I'm in rough shape
and trying to stay out of trouble, which is challenging for me under the best
of circumstances.

I remember the pine cone of I think a yellow pine species opens up at 170
degrees, so it typically opens in response to fire. A quick google suggests it
is called a Jack Pine.

Hurricanes are also thought to be responsible for bringing fly species to
islands and new islands end up having bird poo on them with seeds the birds
ingested. Plants do this intentionally to let birds spread their seeds because
birds lack teeth, so the seeds don't get chewed up in the process.

Hot peppers are intended to be eaten by birds but not other species. They are
hot as a form of chemical warfare against things they don't want eating them.
Chocolate and maybe also coffee is bitter like it is to kill ants and if you
have sufficiently dark chocolate (in, say, a tent), it doesn't attract ants.
Milk chocolate attracts ants because of the sugar, but the cocoa itself is ant
poison.

Anyway, little islands form from volcanos and they start sticking up out of
the ocean a little and they become resting places for birds and the bird poo
is the first soil and fertilizer on these barren volcanic rocks and then
coconut trees are typically the first trees because the coconut will float
across the ocean without being killed by the salt water and land on some newly
formed little island with a bit of bird poo and a few plants and it will take
root. I think no other tree does that.

If you get rid of all "disasters" entirely, you kill off a lot of stuff.
Mother Nature or "mother earth" has fascinating and complex ways of letting
life find a way and fire laying waste to some portion of the forest and
leaving in its wake fertile soil and opening the cones of some pine species is
just one of the fascinating ways she does that.

Anyway, I have big plans to shut up on HN and attempt to go behave now by
being elsewhere. Ciao.

~~~
henearkr
Why shut up? Your post was very informative and thanks to you I learned a lot
of things!

However, I bet that the scale of the wildfires in our apocalyptic late-
Anthropocene is something hardly seen before in healthy forests... all these
species would be better off with less of it.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I have a medical condition and I was extremely frazzled. I can't judge if I'm
making sense or not when I'm really frazzled. I've napped a bit, so I'm less
frazzled now, but I'm still dealing with a lot of stress, as is often the
case.

~~~
henearkr
You were perfectly making sense! ^^

I hope you are better now, I am sorry to hear that you had medical problems...
Do not give up! Your contributions are helpful.

------
samcheng
A hundred miles north of this fire, at the Armstrong Redwood State Park, there
is another lightning-caused wildfire that is burning through an old growth
grove.

That fire is burning through the forest floor only, and is significantly less
dangerous. The 1400-year-old Armstrong tree, and park buildings, have been
protected, while the fire is free to burn through the surrounding undergrowth.
Everyone involved seems to suggest that the fire is a net positive for the
forest, and an overdue ecological renewal.

[https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/flames-yet-to-
rea...](https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/flames-yet-to-reach-
armstrong-woods-old-growth-forest/)

While it's definitely sad to see historic buildings destroyed, not to mention
hundreds of homes, I look forward to returning to Big Basin over the next few
years to witness this renewal first-hand.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> The 1400-year-old Armstrong tree

The bare fact that a tree is 1400 years old is pretty strong evidence that
it's unlikely to be harmed by a fire.

~~~
zorpner
The global temperature anomaly is already out-of-range for not only the
lifetime of this tree, but much of its evolutionary history. We are entering
an out-of-context situation for a large portion of the earth's extant
lifeforms.

~~~
chrisco255
California has been subject to century long droughts in the not too distant
past (about 1000 years ago).

"BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two
droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much
more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California
from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in
fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the
exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500
years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur."

[https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-
dr...](https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-droughts-a-
warning-to-california.html)

What's amazing is that many of these trees survived that. And that modern
humans think modern California is "normal".

~~~
h0l0cube
Further to that, the global temperature anomaly has caused rainfall patterns
to change, meaning some places are trending wetter, and some drier, and
crucially, volatility has increased. Having wet seasons, generating fuel load,
followed by dry is more problematic than a sustained drought.

~~~
bcrosby95
This was actually part of my theory of why California electric companies got
so lazy about tree and brush removal around their power lines. I don't think
it's a coincidence that just 1 year after exiting a 6 year drought state power
companies started huge fires in both Northern and Southern California.

~~~
h0l0cube
So, I'm curious, what do you think would motivate a power company to let their
infrastructure burn, along with the trees?

------
blhack
Climate change is real, but climate change includes both changing temperatures
and rain patterns AND change to the local climate of the forest.

When we prevent small fires from happening that burn out all of the small
bushes and trees on the forest floor, we dramatically change the climate of
the forest. When we build houses in the middle of the forest and then _fight_
the fires that threaten them, we just build up more fuel that will eventually
result in giant fires like the ones we are seeing now.

Of course temperature changes and changes in rain make this all worse as well.

But if we're going to be honest about climate change, then we need to be
honest about climate change. We have entire government agencies whose sole
purpose is to fight against the natural ecology of the forest.

Something big that we can do to both allow for houses and towns to exist in
the forest, _and_ live harmoniously with the environment: allow logging
companies to come in and tend to the forest. Just regulate them.

------
runamok
I was just at Big Basin Headquarters on August 17th for a hike and some trails
were closed due to fire then.

It's hard to believe that's all gone but I am really happy the huge ancient
trees survived. It's one of my favorite places in the world.

I did the skyline to the sea trail with my wife a few years ago and it was
fantastic. The redwoods are really incredible.

An article about their fire resistance: [https://sempervirens.org/redwoods-
and-wildfires/](https://sempervirens.org/redwoods-and-wildfires/)

A donation link to the Sempervirens Fund which helps protect these incredible
trees:
[https://secure.sempervirens.org/onlineactions/l2kebl2BfkqzEy...](https://secure.sempervirens.org/onlineactions/l2kebl2BfkqzEy9l0oZQcA2?ms=10ZW100_F)

------
d33lio
The fires ravaging these forests is really sad, although I was pretty meh on
living in the Bay Area, the immediate access to amazing state wildlife parks
was absolutely unparalleled. IMO, who cares if it's torching scrubby LA hills
or hollywood mansions?

My visit to Big Basin after huge rains in 2017 (arguably a stupid decision)
was basically the first time I could say I had a "religious" experience in
nature. Forests are most alive after a big rain, the entire day I spent there
is absolutely seared into my mind. Every conceivable part of the forest was
alive, surging out of the ground and out to take a look at what was new.

It's important to note that tragedy is an all too common step in evolutionary
time for forests, this is the way that they continue to evolve and move
forward. The last time I visited was after huge mud slides and rivers
overrunning their banks. Many of the trails were blocked by 12' diameter trees
that had fallen when the soil beneath their roots became too waterlogged or
washed away. I can only hope that these forests will continue to thrive beyond
my lifetime.

I will say though, visiting Big Basin really made me question how we could
actually cut down forests like this just to build stupid houses. And we still
are, logging trucks and signs for logging companies are all over the roads
surrounding Big Basin.

------
sradman
The coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) [1]:

> In response to forest fires, the trees have developed various adaptations.
> The thick, fibrous bark of coast redwoods is extremely fire-resistant; it
> grows to at least a foot thick and protects mature trees from fire damage.
> In addition, the redwoods contain little flammable pitch or resin. If
> damaged by fire, a redwood readily sprouts new branches or even an entirely
> new crown, and if the parent tree is killed, new buds sprout from its base.
> Fires, moreover, appear to actually benefit redwoods by causing substantial
> mortality in competing species while having only minor effects on redwood.
> Burned areas are favorable to the successful germination of redwood seeds.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens)

------
dmckeon
Big Basin has burned before, and was “doomed” in 1904:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/DustinMulvaney/status/12977663634...](https://mobile.twitter.com/DustinMulvaney/status/1297766363457400832)

------
ed25519FUUU
“Withstand” is a funny word. Forests _need_ fire. Fire is destructive to the
organs (flora and fauna) but beneficial to the organism (a forest).

I’m thinking of all of the sequoia seeds, now germinated from the fire[1],
that will sprout next year into full sunlight that hasn’t touched the forest
floor in hundreds of years.

It is sad though that it’s also destructive to the lives of so many people.
May everyone find safety who is now in harm’s way.

1\. [https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/why-the-giant-
sequoia-n...](https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/why-the-giant-sequoia-
needs-fire-to-grow)

~~~
hanniabu
> It is sad though that it’s also destructive to the lives of so many people.

Eh, maybe it's just me but I've always felt worse for the animals than the
people.

~~~
stjohnswarts
People are animals and also part of nature, no matter how far above it we
think that we are.

------
justinzollars
If you tour Muir Woods, many redwoods feature fire damage from fires ages ago.

~~~
khuey
Redwoods are adapted to fire, yes, but surely there's _some_ limit to how much
they can take. Thankfully it seems this event may have been below that limit.

------
bamboozled
I guess 2000 is a long time biologically and I suppose those trees have seen
bad fires before climate change really kicked off.

I'm sure there were very dry and warm periods before this too.

Even thought we might think we're dominating nature, I'm sure it has a few
tricks up it's sleeve yet.

~~~
URSpider94
The concerning issue with this fire is that humans have spent most of the last
100 years suppressing wildfires in these forests. This leads to an
unprecedented amount of fuel built up on the forest floor, which leads to
abnormally large and hot wildfires. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be too
much for the redwoods, though time will tell.

~~~
h0l0cube
Not sure what fire plans California have, but prescribed burning is a thing.

[https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/prescribed-
fire](https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/prescribed-fire)

~~~
kaikai
It’s a thing, but it’s not being done on a large enough scale. It’s and
incredibly difficult, decade long process to get plans approved on public
lands. Private lands are much easier but still need extensive permitting
through fire and air quality officials. We’re just starting to acknowledge the
former extent of cultural burning in California, and the current need for fire
on the landscape. It’s gotten easier to get the general public on board over
the last couple years, and hopefully that trend continues!

------
maerF0x0
selective harvesting (thinning), controlled burns and other tasks are hard
sells to tree hugging Californians. However, it could be someone's livelihood
AND a partial solution to the issues that come up.

How much do we spend on forest firefighting? How much do we spend on "no
logging" lobbying? How much do we spend on smoke inhalation property damage
and all the public communications?

All that could be recouped AND an industry could be revived.

~~~
ummonk
Loggers tend to clear cut large trees, which is the exact opposite of what we
need.

Obviously if they wanted to thin out the smaller trees that would be
beneficial but the profitability there is questionable.

~~~
stjohnswarts
Loggers would love to cut down these ancient beauties. I hope they never get
the chance to, but I worry with Presidents like the current one if at some
point in the future they will tell the loggers to flatten these old growth
forests just to make a few bucks.

------
mleonhard
Original article:
[https://apnews.com/ce2946afbc66040260cc76ffbbe744ca](https://apnews.com/ce2946afbc66040260cc76ffbbe744ca)

The nbcnews.com site refuses to show content in Firefox Focus on mobile.

------
rootsudo
Why are there always so many fires in California?

~~~
hadlock
Coastal California sees rain from about the end of October through February,
then tapers off to about nothing by May. It then does not rain again until
Halloween. I used to think "doesn't rain" meant "half an inch every couple of
weeks" but it does not rain in fact at all, it's totally bone dry for the
hottest part of the year, until late fall. Getting three inches over the
weekend is enough precipitation in the bay area to warrant flood warnings for
several days. Compared to Dallas Texas where three inches in an afternoon
might cause very localized flooding for an hour or two. It's quite bone dry
here in the summers, the ground is literally "tinder dry" for months on end.

If you look at meso scale weather, there's a high pressure zone that develops
between San Fransisco and Hawaii every summer which wards off low pressure
(rain) systems. Generally develops by early June and lasts through August.
Research "Pacific High" or "TransPac weather routing" or "Pac Cup weather
routing" it's a major component of Pacific Ocean sailing races

~~~
pueblito
I reckon that 3" of rain in a day would cause serious flooding here in
southern Colorado. It'd certainly set a record! I don't think I've seen so
much in my entire life, so it floors me to hear it's no big in Dallas

------
umvi
Let's take a moment and recognize the fear-mongering going on a few days ago
where there were articles saying "this time is different because of climate
change, this time climate change super fires have caused a national treasure
to be destroyed"

~~~
crawsome
Are you saying there's not enough evidence to associate the wack storm that
prefaced this with climate change?

The Bay area NEVER gets rain for like almost, 8 months of the year. This was a
freak event.

~~~
umvi
I'm just saying there was a lot of mourning and saying "the redwoods are
gone".

When people responded "you don't get to be a 1000+ year old tree without being
able to survive fires" the response was "yeah but that was before climate
change. These trees are likely gone forever now because climate change
combined with fire suppression is causing super fires that burn much hotter"

------
huffmsa
Lindy

~~~
maerF0x0
i believe ^^ is referring to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect)

This concept could be applied to mean that because the forest survived this
event, we should expect to last much longer than previously assumed.
(something like that at least...)

~~~
huffmsa
Correct. Not sure who these unread swine with their trigger happy downboat
buttons think they are.

As well, that the tree is already 2,000 years old, we shouldn't be surprised
it's survived this fire. It's survived many fires.

------
syshum
I mean they are 2,000 years old. Does NBC think this is the first fire in
2,000 years?

------
loxs
"What did you think, you stupid apes? We were here long before you and we will
be here long after you are gone!"

------
onetimemanytime
Young man, do you know many fires I have seen and survived over my years?

(In other words, fires are part of nature.)

------
waihtis
Offtopic: anybody else find it hilarious how this completely serious news
piece is followed by a section of spam-grade garbage "advertisements?" [1]

How the hell does a news organization decide this is a worthy way of pumping
up revenues?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboola#Reception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboola#Reception)

ps. not on my usual computer, yes I know of adblocking :-)

~~~
justforfunhere
This has been the case with most News Sites, information portals etc for the
last 2-3 years. They have semi-porn pictures with click bait titles after the
news story that lure users into shady sites with shady intentions.

------
pvaldes
Another demonstration than ancien forests are fireproof whereas young forests
aren't. This is the reason that makes centenary trees so valuable and so rare.

But each fire gnaw a little of this protection.

Arsonists should be more severely punished. Is the same as terrorism, just
much more insidious, causing a bigger economical damage and a durable damage
at long term. Not to mention that also kills people...

Why is so well accepted as unavoidable by the public opinion still amazes me

------
remote_phone
So many on HN were talking about how these fires were so much more intense
than the other fires, and that probably Big Basin would be gone forever, etc.

Just another example of how people especially on HN read a few articles and
then think they are experts on the topic.

The ancient redwoods survived and will thrive, as fully expected. It’s not
that forest fires are great, but it’s a natural process of life and people
thinking “this time it’s different” are usually wrong.

------
greentimer
Many commentators have blamed climate change for the fires because it is
fashionable, especially on the left, to do so. The reality is that the very
small change in temperatures produced by climate change isn't sufficient to
produce a change in the rate of fires. We'll have to wait a long time for
climate change to produce such effects, if it ever does. I would lay the blame
more on our society's technological stagnation in terms of its inability to
come up with better technologies than those that have existed since the 1950s
to fit fires. We haven't buried our power lines, we don't have strategically
positioned water storage systems, we don't have huge drones specifically for
firefighting that could dump more water on the fires than an ordinary
helicopter could.

I'd say this article barely meets HN's standards of something that garners
intellectual interest and is more the type of thing I'd expect to see on
Reddit alongside cat videos. And then of course there is the environmentalist
bent that the redwoods of at most sentimental value were the important thing
that burned down, rather than things of material value to people. I wonder if
anyone ended up homeless as a result of the fires.

According to the theory of radical skepticism it is very tough to put a
probability bound on supposedly low probability disasters like fires, and so
we must be prepared for them.

~~~
rrrrrrrrrrrryan
Today, there's more low hanging fruit in the world of fire prevention than
fire fighting. It's mostly low-tech work that just needs adequate funding and
the political will: manually clearing out brush, using grazing animals like
goats, controlled burns. Ultimately, the overgrowth has to go, one way or
another.

Controlled burns especially have become politically unpopular in recent
decades, but they're tremendously effective. With controlled burns, we can
burn small amounts of brush when the wind is blowing gently away from major
population centers. If we want to fund technical solutions, I'd invest in
software that models the best times and places to conduct these controlled
burn operations FAR before we start discussing firefighting drones.

