When the largest fire recorded in the history of Channel Islands National Park erupted on Santa Rosa Island in May, observers feared for the park’s rare Torrey pines.
On Tuesday, the National Park Service released grim news: Up to 80% of the grove’s trees could die as a result of the fire, which burned nearly 40% of the 18,000-acre island from May 15 to June 4.
The Torrey pine is among the rarest species of pine trees in the world, according to the National Park Service. It grows naturally in only two known locations: Santa Rosa Island and Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve in La Jolla.
The grove on Santa Rosa Island, which sits about 26 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, is a genetically distinct subspecies that occurs nowhere else on Earth. More than 24,000 Torrey pines were recorded on Santa Rosa in the most recent survey in 2014, the park service said, including 3,000 mature, cone-producing trees.
Ignited by a shipwrecked sailor’s emergency flare, the fire was first reported on the island’s southwestern coast in the early morning hours of May 15.
Because the fire was burning at a low intensity when it tore through the grove area three days later, park officials were initially hopeful that damage to the trees would be limited. In the immediate aftermath of the blaze, the grove appeared intact.
But subsequent investigation found that 60% to 80% of the grove’s trees were scorched, according to a report released Tuesday from the fire’s Burned Area Emergency Response team.
Exposed roots of mature trees sustained heavy damage, and scratch tests on most trees produced no sap — a sign that heat “effectively destroy[ed] the tree’s internal plumbing,” the report stated.
“The potential loss of so many mature Torrey pines is heartbreaking,” Channel Islands National Park Supt. Ethan McKinley said in a statement. “But we must resolve ourselves to focus on what we can save, and the next few months are critical.”
Park officials are concerned that intense storms predicted for this winter could wash away the topsoil needed for the grove’s restoration. Crews have already covered the fragile area with 4,500 linear feet of wattles, long tubes whose natural fibers hold soil in place, the National Park Service said.
“The understory of the Torrey pines forest is basically completely gone. There are no more shrubs, just bare ground under the trees,” said Matt Guilliams, a senior principal investigator with the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden who is leading a post-fire census of the island’s Torrey pines.
Park staff have also collected more than 14,000 seeds released from the pine cones. Viable seeds will be planted and raised in a nursery until the seedlings can be planted in the grove.
Though the arrival of a super El Niño in the fire’s wake is “not great timing,” Guilliams said he is hopeful for the grove’s recovery, and it is still too early to know for certain how many trees will ultimately succumb to fire damage. Several of the island’s perennial plant species are already resprouting in the burn area, he said.
