- Author: Ann King Filmer
Published on: September 4, 2013

Fire consumes a once-healthy California redwood tree. (photo: USFS)
California’s renowned coast redwood trees, previously believed to be fireproof, are now more than four times more susceptible to wildfire injury in coastal forest areas infested with the sudden oak death pathogen. These redwoods are now as susceptible to wildfires as other trees.
Millions of trees, including tanoaks, coast live oak, California bay laurels, and many other forest species have been killed by sudden oak death in coastal areas of central and northern California, and Oregon. The pathogen, Phytophthora ramorum, was first linked to the massive tree death in the mid-1990s.
David Rizzo, professor in the Department of Plant...
Tags: climate change (58), coast redwood (1), David Rizzo (2), fire (11), Fire ecology (5), forest (15), global warming (8), Phytophthora ramorum (1), redwood (2), sudden oak death (11), wildfire (70)
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