A white-headed woodpecker stirs the dawn quiet, hammering at a patch of charred bark stretching 15 feet up the trunk of a ponderosa pine. The first streaks of sun light the tree’s green crown, sending beams across this grove of healthy conifers. The marks of the 2021 Dixie Fire are everywhere. Several blackened trees lie toppled among the pale blossoms of deer brush and the spikes of snow plants, their crimson faded to dusky coral.
Flames raged through neighboring forests, exploding the tops of trees, flinging sparks down the mountainside until, on August 4, 2021, the fire itself reached the valley below and Greenville, 90 miles north of Lake Oroville. It took less than 30 minutes to destroy a town of 1,000 residents. Yet this stand at Round Valley Reservoir survived.
Years earlier, U.S. Forest Service crews had removed the brush and smaller trees, reducing the most flammable vegetation. Then they set fires, burning what was left on the ground in slow-moving spurts of flame. When Dixie arrived, the same fire that melted cars and torched 800 homes hit t... Read more
