When a forest fire ravaged 20,000 hectares of forest in the Spanish province of Valencia in 2012, scientists made an amazing discovery: a patch of green. A group of cypresses stood seemingly untouched in a forest that was otherwise completely charred. Turns out, Mediterranean cypress trees have a natural resistance to fire. So much so, that in a forest where "all the common oaks, holm oaks, pines, and junipers had completely burnt," the BBC reports that only "1.27 percent of the Mediterranean cypresses had ignited."
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