When the pine trees don’t return

New tree growth in the Rim Fire burn scar near Greeley Hill, California.— Nic Coury/The New York Times

ON a gentle slope on the western side of the Sierra Nevada, where a towering green canopy of ponderosa pines had stood for centuries, wildfires have transformed roughly 700ha into brown, bare shrubland.

That forest is gone for good, scientists say.