Happy Thursday. I’m Colin Partyle, a reporter on science and health of the times, filling this week for the unparalleled Sammy Ross.
Last week, my family headed north from Los Angeles towards Yosemite, just 157 years and five days after 29-year-old John Muir left on foot from San Francisco to the same destination.
Certainly, there have been some changes in the present-day Yosemite National Park since the Scotland-born naturalists began hiking with pocket maps and confident guarantees.
Muir encounters a valley floor organized with paved roads, or cars, or clusters of tourists arranged in gaps on rock climbers hanging from the thin faces of El Pitan. However, on the timescales of the geological and glacial processes that shaped Yosemite, our visit was barely exhaled. The description of the wonder he found Muir may have been briefly written last week.
“The valley, which is comprehensive, looks like a huge hall or temple illuminated from above,” Muir wrote of his first impression. “However, the hand-made temple cannot be compared to Yosemite. Every rock on the wall seems to be life-glowing.
Yosemite’s timeless granite cathedral and melted snow-walled waterfalls are awe-inspiring. But as I drove every day from a rental cabin in the nearby Stanislaus National Forest to the western entrance of the park, a very different sight blew us into words.
The High Sierra Forest has evolved to coexist with fire. As part of Indigenous land management practices, lightning or intentionally lit flames have been part of a thousand years of ecosystems, clearing up invasive species and excess vegetation, and fostering new growth. Some native trees are “serotinic.” In other words, they rely on the heat of the wildfires to cause the dispersion of new seeds from the corn.
But the kind of large, high-intensity, uncontrolled wildfires caused by climate change is something completely different.
The Rim Fire, which lit an illegal campfire by Hunter on August 17, 2013, consumed more than 77,000 acres (400 square miles) on the Yosemite boundary.
A third of its area burns hot enough to completely destroy 75% to 100% of the standing trees, and essentially live to regenerate the original forest, said John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resources Centre, which works on wildlife, water and ecology in the northern Yosemite region.
Controlling burn and wildfire management efforts in the past few years has helped to keep rimfire spreading to some extent, but IT and strength still resulted in large tree mortality in some regions, creating the next ripe state of megafire.
“These are the places that really bothers us today,” said Scott Stevens, professor of fire science and forest policy at the UC Berkeley family.
More than a decade later, some of Yosemite’s most heavily affected areas still have up to 300 obstacles per acre. This will spark away from the next big fire, along with about 150 tons per acre of dead biomass, along with new growth. “So,” he said, “The next fire in that system will be severe.”
There is definitely one: When it happened, the Rim Fire was the third largest in California’s recorded history. In about 12 years, I won’t even fall below the top 10.
National Parks are a miracle of time, and a place where we marvel at how our sunny run as a species intersects with the long, long processes that have shaped these breathtaking landscapes.
Now they are also a place where humans stack up climate change bares how quickly and quickly these ecosystems can be transformed, making them inaccessible for life.
I last visited Yosemite as a child with my parents, but my kids didn’t see the same park as me and they never did. The rim fire confirmed that. In a single generation of blips, a thousand-year-old forest strip has been transformed into a burnt landscape that cannot physically return to their previous states physically in the course of my life or the course of my children.
Careful stewardship, repotting and responsible fire management allow us to grow young forests “probably pretty” over a few generations, Stephens said. But that requires investment and personnel. This is extremely at risk to the National Park Service under the current Trump administration. A representative from the park contacted for this story refused to speak.
“If it’s actively working there, I think 50% of the (highest) wood will survive when the next rim fire comes. I think it’s a victory,” Stevens said. “But in its current state, it’s as vulnerable as we saw the rim fire burning.”
Here’s what’s happening elsewhere in the climate and environmental world:
We are beginning to realize that we are leaving the scope of the environmentally polluted LA fire.
Last week, the Los Angeles County Public Health Department released preliminary test results from hundreds of soil samples collected in areas affected by the Palisade and Eton fires.
In somewhat encouraging news, samples from the Pallisard region returned little evidence of contamination beyond some isolated spikes of heavy metals and polyaromatic hydrocarbons.
The same could not be said about areas affected by the Eton fire.
More than a third of the samples collected within Eaton burning scars exceeded the health standards of lead per kilogram of California soil. Almost half of the samples just outside the burn scar boundary had lead levels above state limits.
And the leech at the fire boundary exceeded that limit between 70% and 80% of the sample.
As Tony first reported, the county is now responsible for pollution testing as the federal government has left its almost two-year tradition of testing soil in ruined facilities cleaned up by the US Army Corps of Engineers after the fire.
Previously, the Army would rub 6 inches of topsoil from cleared properties to test the rest of the Earth. If these tests reveal prolonged contamination, it rubs further.
After the 2018 camp fire at Paradise, testing on 12,500 properties revealed that almost a third contained dangerous levels of contaminants, even after the first six inches of topsoil was removed.
The county has so far only shared results from standing homes that are not eligible for Army Corps of Engineers cleanup. Results for compartments with damaged or destroyed structures are still pending.
Frustrated by the slow trickle of data from the government, some Altadena residents are taking tests into their own hands. This week, my colleagues gathered test results on the efforts of 90 home grassroots organizations. Of these, 76% exceeded the EPA limit.
On Tuesday, the County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to divert $3 million from the county, testing residential properties within a mile of the leeward and Eton Barnscar boundary. This is an issue that the Times follows closely and there’s more to tell you right away. All I can say for now is look at this space.
“No one wants to be at the heart of chaos.”
That’s what almond farmer Christine Genpal said during his visit to Ceres, California, a farming community near Modesto. She spoke of the fear and uncertainty that Trump’s tariff agitation has created for farmers across California, the country’s top farm exporters.
In 2022 alone, the nation has shipped nuts, rice, tomatoes and other delicious goodies from around the world.
However, Ian reports that California’s agricultural operations could bear costs as China, Canada and other countries retaliate against U.S. tariffs by imposing their own taxes on American goods.
Canada is one of the unexpected bogeymen in the second Trump administration, amongst agricultural exports such as California wine, strawberries, lettuce and oranges, followed by the European Union and China.
However, this productive trade relationship is beginning to collapse. In addition to Canada, Canadians are also beginning.
Genper’s 135-acre farm is one of California growers that produces more than three-quarters of the world’s almonds. Things weren’t easy under the first Trump administration, she told Ian. The adoption of US tariffs in 2018 prompted China to retaliate. Genpal, she said, is watching businesses escape to places like Australia instead.
It’s too early to know how this trade disruption unfolds, but the uncertainty already keeps her at night.
“Agriculture is uncertain, it’s risk and gambling. No more needed,” she said. “It’s all overwhelming.”
One more
News from the ocean haven’t been great lately.
Ruins of the washing were washed in Huntington Beach last week. This year, we’re at the lagoon in Baja California.
Many sea lions and dolphins have been fatally poisoned in recent months by domoacid, a neurotoxin produced by the harmful algae bloom. Animal rescue shelters are filled with malnourished orphaned chicks. It is a further victim of the development of domo acid.
So a prop to the Times Wildlife Reporter Lilasademan who found positive Marine Corps news. And yes, because you were wondering – it is accompanied by the sea star sperm of the sunflower!
The Sunflower Sea Star thrived along the Pacific coast until 2013, when mysterious diseases were destroyed for about 99% of California’s population. Previous predators were removed from the photo and purple sea urchins multiplied. Kelp, sea urchin’s favorite food, has collapsed. Lila reports on her efforts to revitalize the population through laboratory-raised sea stars. Read and start with the release of Seastar sperm at unexpected timing just before the planned spawn.
“The good thing is, six men have left, so there’s all of that sperm… We’re running,” a source at Lila told her. Finally, there is a happy ending of the ocean.
This is the latest in Boiling Point, a newsletter on climate change and the environment of the US West. . And listen to the “Boil Point” podcast .
