A new study shows that controlled fires significantly improved survival rates for giant sequoias during major wildfires in California. Researchers analyzed data from fires in 2020 and 2021 and found strong protective effects from prior prescribed burns.
Two wildfires in California's Sierra Nevada in 2020 and 2021 killed thousands of giant sequoias. A University of California, Davis study published in Nature Communications examined roughly 26,400 trees across 19 groves.
Trees in areas treated with prescribed burns in the previous decade were nearly four times more likely to survive than untreated trees. The burns reduced mortality odds by about 77 percent.
Lead author Dan Dixon said prescribed burns remain effective even against today's extreme wildfires. Simulations indicated the treatments prevented about 1,900 sequoia deaths and could have saved thousands more if applied more widely.
The research drew on remote sensing data from UC Davis, the U.S. Geological Survey, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. It was funded by NASA, the California Strategic Growth Council, and the USDA.
