© 2025 Connecticut Public

FCC Public Inspection Files:
WEDH · WEDN · WEDW · WEDY
WEDW-FM · WNPR · WPKT · WRLI-FM
Public Files Contact · ATSC 3.0 FAQ
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

A Single California Fire Killed 10% Of The World's Giant Sequoia Trees

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Giant sequoias live up to their name, soaring hundreds of feet into the sky. They are also some of the longest-living organisms on the planet. Some are more than 3,000 years old.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

But last summer, the Castle Fire ripped through California's southern Sierra Nevada and killed unprecedented numbers of the trees.

CHRISTY BRIGHAM: There's too many to count. And we'll probably never know how old they were or how many, you know, multiple thousand years of living history were lost in this fire.

SHAPIRO: Christy Brigham and her colleagues at the National Park Service have now attempted to count what's been lost with preliminary surveys. They say as many as 10,000 giant sequoias may have died in that single fire. That's one-tenth of all the giant sequoias living today.

KELLY: To see so many sequoias killed by fire is tragic but also paradoxical because the trees actually need fire to survive.

BRIGHAM: They actually rely on fire to open their cones and create small openings in the canopy and clear the soil for their seedlings to grow.

KELLY: In the past, low-intensity fires danced along the forest floor. Today they have grown much more severe and are destroying the forest canopy.

BRIGHAM: What we think is happening is that a hundred years of fire suppression, combined with climate change-driven hotter droughts, has changed the structure of the forest. The forest is more dense, and that has really changed the way fires are burning in the Sierra Nevada.

SHAPIRO: Brigham says the fire destroyed not only these trees but all the useful services they provided, too.

BRIGHAM: They are structure for birds and mammals. They're shading the soil. They're helping - their roots are helping keep the soil in place. They are sequestering carbon, taking carbon out of the atmosphere.

SHAPIRO: Ten thousand dead trees is such a large number that Brigham says it should serve as a wake-up call.

BRIGHAM: It is a reason to double-down on increasing the forest health and making the remaining groves and the forest as a whole resilient to wildfire, and when we have fire, as we will, we don't have these devastating losses.

KELLY: The hope is to bring back gentler fires that spawn new life and preserve these ancient guardians of the Sierra Nevada.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Summer Thomad
Mano Sundaresan is a producer at NPR.
Christopher Intagliata is an editor at All Things Considered, where he writes news and edits interviews with politicians, musicians, restaurant owners, scientists and many of the other voices heard on the air.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT is an initiative from Connecticut Public, the state’s local NPR and PBS station, to elevate Latino stories and expand programming that uplifts and informs our Latino communities. Visit CTPublic.org/latino for more stories and resources. For updates, sign up for the SOMOS CONNECTICUT newsletter at ctpublic.org/newsletters.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.