<story><title>2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California&apos;s oldest state park</title><url>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/2-000-year-old-redwoods-survive-wildfire-california-s-oldest-n1237949</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gdubs</author><text>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!”&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dfsegoat</author><text>In the case of Armstrong Woods historic Redwood grove here in Sonoma County, CA - currently threatended by Walbridge fire [1]:&lt;p&gt;From a fuel standpoint, the entire area around the redwoods used to be managed by logging companies and private industry - they even staffed the fire towers. Since that time, private and conservation owners have bought up the land around the area, but pretty much have done nothing to manage fuels, right now that is all burning for the first time in 50+ years.&lt;p&gt;The failure of those parcels to properly manage fuels on their property probably led to the threat to the redwood groves in this case. For this area in general, the NIMBY attitude has largely precluded controlled burning on the scale it used to be conducted at.&lt;p&gt;1 - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;napsg.maps.arcgis.com&amp;#x2F;apps&amp;#x2F;webappviewer&amp;#x2F;index.html?id=6dc469279760492d802c7ba6db45ff0e&amp;amp;extent=-13816097.4846%2C4550240.7459%2C-13577613.9563%2C4705713.6614%2C102100&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;napsg.maps.arcgis.com&amp;#x2F;apps&amp;#x2F;webappviewer&amp;#x2F;index.html?i...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>2,000-year-old redwoods survive wildfire at California&apos;s oldest state park</title><url>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/2-000-year-old-redwoods-survive-wildfire-california-s-oldest-n1237949</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gdubs</author><text>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!”&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eloff</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.int-res.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;cr_oa&amp;#x2F;c047p123.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.int-res.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;cr_oa&amp;#x2F;c047p123.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>