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Posted by Bill S on November 8, 2007 at 1:23:58 pm EST
In reply to Cali wildfires posted by MTB416 on October 27, 2007 at 11:40:17 am EDT

Last night the National Geographic Channel had a program titled something like Secret Yosemite. As a theme, it had a friend of mine, Lincoln Else, who for many years was the Climbing Ranger for Yosemite, climbing the Nose route on El Capitan. Along with using the climb as a cue for digressions on geology, the waterfalls, and lightning strikes, there was a good discussion of the role of fires.

While I had known (and mentioned above, as did rexim) that some plants depend on fire for activating their seeds, I had not known (or more likely forgotten) that during the 80 years or so of aggressive fire suppression in Yosemite, few if any new giant sequoias had sprouted. The sequoia depends on fire to open the cones and disperse the seeds. Also, the discussion pointed out that fires free the ground of cover so that the young sequoias can grow to a point where they can receive sunlight. In this same section, there was a discussion of deciduous forest (in particular, oak trees), in other parts of Yosemite, that are dependent on fire to open the canopy so that young oaks can receive sunlight necessary for growth.

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