The High Sierra forest is dying, and you can't count the loss in dead trees
I live in the foothills of the sierra, and I&#x27;ve been a search and rescue volunteer for a while now, so I&#x27;m in some part of the Tahoe national forest about once a week on average.<p>The damage, when you see it up close, is stunning. You&#x27;ll be driving along a highway and see miles, and miles, and miles of dead trees standing there, waiting to burn.<p>It&#x27;s catastrophic, and that&#x27;s not a word I use lightly.<p>The prediction for this year is a mostly dry and cold Winter. If that happens, I expect next Summer to be one of the worst fire seasons in state history. There&#x27;s so much dry material out there now in areas that require tremendous resources to combat.<p>If&#x2F;when superfire season happens, there&#x27;s a good chance it&#x27;ll overwhelm state resources and there&#x27;s going to be a lot of damage that will take decades to recover.<p>I was in Kings Canyon for a state SAR conference not too long ago and the fire scars from a few years ago still look fresh. Most of the stretch of highway 20 through Clear Lake is just black and brown. That&#x27;s gonna be a look that&#x27;s hard to get away from pretty soon, and I doubt we fully grasp the impact of that yet.