Amid Western Blazes, Prescribed Fire Is Keeping Some Forests Resilient
Islands of green trees near Lake Tahoe survived the fast-moving flames of the Caldor Fire, thanks in part to earlier controlled burns and other treatments, officials say.
Some sections of forest scorched by the Caldor Fire, the 15th largest in California history, are still intact and green as of early September, in part thanks to the work of earlier fuel reduction treatments such as prescribed burning.
Photographer: U.S. Forest ServiceWith more than 217,000 acres burned as of September 8, the Caldor Fire southwest of Lake Tahoe has left swaths of the Sierra Nevada severely devastated. More than 900 structures have been destroyed, including virtually the entire town of Grizzly Flats.
But within the fire’s massive footprint stand patches of green, living trees. One looks like a finger poking into the eastern edge of the fire, along Caples Creek and around Caples Lake. That expanse of vitality overlaps extensively with an 8,800-acre area that had been treated in 2019 with prescribed burning, a tactic practitioners say can make fire-adapted forests less susceptible to catastrophic blazes, and limiting the threat they pose to people.