As the giant pine dies, sunshine bleaches the sky, and a dry but gentle wind blows in the Plumas National Forest. If there’d been more rain that winter, the pine might’ve been able to fend off the attack. But stressed by drought, it had little sap to defend itself when the beetles launched their offensive that spring. Now the giant is scarred by tunnels and shedding bark, slowly being killed by a pest the size of a grain of rice.
Beside the pine, other trees sway, some still healthy but many infested too. Leaves whisper. Dead branches, brown needles, and hard, crisp leaves carpet the forest floor. Here, plains roll into vast expanses of timberland. Incense cedar. Douglas fir. Ponderosa pine. Trunks sticky with resin nearly as flammable as gasoline. Other trees have downed beneath the dense canopy, among the millions killed by drought and disease.
A single spark could ignite this parched hillside in minutes.
In Northern California, the month of July has sweltered. Historically, July is always hottest, but this year, heat-related records have been set in many towns.
It isn’t the heat alone that worries the residents near the Plumas National Forest. Here, along the northern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, a fire-weather watch issued Friday morning surprises few. The humidity is low, and it’s been a long while since the region got any rain. A high-pressure system is brewing.
There’s also the wind. An anemometer measures it at ten miles per hour. Not too bad yet. But it unnerves some residents, especially those who lived through the Dixie Fire, which burned nearly a million acres and stopped just short of the town of Quincy’s border. Residents reassure their neighbors and themselves. At least it’s not a red-flag warning, they say. Then, remembering Dixie, At least the wind isn’t howling like it did that morning.
Still, some pack bags and locate pet carriers. Just in case. And they listen to the wind.
As the arid morning passes, the trees continue to sway, and the leaves continue to whisper.
Friday evening, though, the wind picks up. It blows at fifteen miles per hour, with gusts double that. Humidity plummets too, settling below 10 percent.
And then there are the dry thunderstorms. As the sky shakes, rain evaporates before it hits the ground. There’s no moisture to dampen the earth when lightning strikes. These bolts, several times hotter than the sun’s surface, can cause steel to melt. Trees to explode. Flesh to cook.
Given these changes, the weather service elevates the alert. It’s now a red-flag warning.
But not everyone gets the notification.
To reduce wildfire risk, the local electric utility cuts power for a remote area southeast of the capital, which disrupts cell phone service there. An inconvenience, to be sure, but one deemed necessary to keep the towns safe. Besides, utility executives reason, the outage affects only a few hundred people, and service is predicted to be restored quickly.
One of those areas left without service is the Ridgepoint Ranch subdivision.
Thirteen miles to the north, lightning strikes the giant pine. Now marked for a quicker death, the pine starts to smolder.