The drought in California has killed 66 million trees in the Sierra Nevada

Dead and dying trees in Los Padres National Forest.
(Image credit: David McNew/Getty Images)

Since 2010, 66 million trees have died in California's Sierra Nevada forests, due to drought, bark beetle, and high temperatures.

Officials have been flying overheard to assess the damage, and have spotted rows of dead trees the color of rust covering large swathes of land. During the last count in October, there were 40 million dead trees, The Associated Press reports, with the mortality from Tuolumne to Kern countries increased by 65 percent.

The Forest Service says it has cut down 77,000 trees along roads and near homes and campgrounds, and Gov. Jerry Brown (D) declared an emergency in October and created a task force to figure out faster ways to remove the trees. Firefighters fear that the trees will serve as fuel for wildfires, and with California now in its fifth year of drought, the trees are drier than ever and more vulnerable to attack by bark beetles. "Tree die-offs of this magnitude are unprecedented and increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires that puts property and lives at risk," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement. "We must fund wildfire suppression like other natural disasters in the country."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.