Nature's Hopeful Resilience
Fire Among Giants
Good morning from a beautiful, crisp, and fogless day by the Bay.
The sun has been a relative rarity recently in California as we’ve received heavy doses of precipitation. This is our wet season and with mountain snowpack below average, the storms have been a welcome aid to our delicate balance of water.
But the recent deluge hit Southern California particularly hard. The ferocity of rain and wind, likely abetted by climate change, is an increasing concern.
Growing up out west and spending a fair amount of time in nature, I have become more aware of the stresses caused by the changing climate. But I am also heartened by our planet’s resilience.
I hope to make these examinations a part of this newsletter.
A few weeks back I wrote about the marvelous magnolia (you can read about it here) and today my thoughts are once again on trees. I imagine root systems across the region eagerly replenishing themselves with the new bounty of groundwater.
As some of you may know, my primary endeavor these days is as a science documentary filmmaker, helping lead a nonprofit called the Science Communication Lab. I’ll share more about what we do at some point, but I wanted to start today with one of our short films, “Fire Among Giants.” It is about a favorite place of mine — Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains just south of San Francisco.
In August 2020, this sacred grove of old-growth redwood trees was hit with a ferocious wildfire. The following spring, we were among the first journalists let into the closed park. We were there to walk among the ancient giants to document what had happened, and more importantly, what was happening. We had three wonderful guides who shared cautionary tales of human hubris and pointed out hopeful signs of nature’s inventiveness. There was destruction but also renewal.
Today, Big Basin is back open to the public, reimagined and regrowing. This feels like a helpful metaphor for our troubled times.
Watching this short video was not only insightful, but a refreshing escape from politics.
Thank you for sharing this film, Elliot. As a scientist I have long known of the need for controlled burning in our California forests. Our indigenous people knew this from years of observation, and they were correct. We immigrants did a lot of damage to the forests by not allowing controlled burns, and by clear cutting large patches of the forest. Redwoods - and most of the genus, Sequoias are capable of withstanding and continuing growth after a forest fire. But what we are seeing now, due to the increase of undergrowth accumulation are crown fires which even Sequoias (the genus which includes redwoods) cannot withstand.
While the trumspter's ignorant comment that we should 'sweep' our forest floors displayed his stupidity, he was correct that it is the accumulation of undergrowth that makes the fires more intense, therefor controlled burning, which nature had long provided before Europeans arrived here, is essential if our trees are to survive.
By the way, Bristlecone pines of the White Mountain range east of Bishop, CA are a few thousand years older than the oldest redwoods.