Ancient CA Forest Wiped Out By Devastating Wildfire In 2025: Report

SIERRA NATIONAL FOREST, CA — Trees that began growing nearly 500 years ago were destroyed in a wildfire that devastated 3,000 federally protected acres earlier this year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Over the next 50 years, ancient forests like the Teakettle Experimental Forest, are at risk of being wiped out entirely due to a combination of extensive drought and high-intensity wildfires, according to the newspaper.

80 miles east of Fresno, the Teakettle Forest was an area U.S. Forest Service scientists had been testing strategies to save ancient and massive trees. They were gearing up for plans to light a massive prescribed burn mitigate overgrowth next year.

But before they could do so, the Garnet Fire ignited in August, charring 60,263 acres and wiping out the ancient forest in its path, which was roughly 3,000 acres.

“There are large swaths where everything is dead — all the trees are dead,” Scott Scherbinski, a biologist and program manager at the Climate & Wildfire Institute, told the Chronicle. “It will be a start-over event for this forest.”

Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle: ‘All the trees are dead’: An ancient California forest has been wiped out

Although federal and state fire agencies fought to save the ancient grove from the fire, all was lost. On Sept. 8, ecologist Matthew Hurteau published a "Eulogy For Teakettle."

Hurteau has worked at the Teakettle Experimental Forest since 2002.

"I have great attachment to this place. I spent months every year camped-out to collect data," he wrote.

Hurteau said over the years, he has watched the Teakettle skyline change due to the 2012-2016 drought, which killed some 30 percent of the ancient sequoias.

"I am sad and angry. I am sad because this old-growth forest is no more. I am angry because this outcome was a choice. The choice was inaction by forest ‘leadership.’"

"Our public lands are one of the crown jewels of our country and I hope that we can act with enough urgency to help prepare them for the changes that are coming."

SEE ALSO: CA Wildfire Threatens Ancient Giant Sequoia Grove