Slow regrowth 29 years after intense 1992 Rainbow Fire, Devils Postpile National Monument, Inyo National Forest, California, USA.

Slow regrowth of vegetation and trees, 29 years after the intense Rainbow Fire of 1992 is shown on a smoky 21st of August in 2021, in Devils Postpile National Monument, Inyo National Forest, near Mammoth Lakes, California, USA. Smoke drifting from the bad Caldor, Dixie, and other fires frequently smarted our eyes during 3 weeks of hiking in the Eastern Sierra in August of 2021. On September 1, most of California's National Forests were unprecedentedly closed due to fire risk for two weeks! Decades of fire exclusion policies, years of below-normal snow and rainfall, a hot summer, and remote upslope location provided fuel and conditions ripe for the 1992 Rainbow Fire, a conflagration sparked by lightning strikes. Scientists warn that human-caused climate change has made the U.S. West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive.

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Filename: 2108CA1-698.jpg
Copyright: © Tom Dempsey / PhotoSeek.com
Image Size: 5472x3648 / 9.3MB; http://www.photoseek.com/; California North America Sierra Nevada Mountains USA United States of America climate change environment landscape mountain nature outdoor weather
Contained in galleries: California: Sierras: Inyo National Forest, 2021 Aug 1-Sep 12: CA Sierras, CO, NE, SD, Global warming, climate change, Human impacts on world ecosystems

Slow regrowth of vegetation and trees, 29 years after the intense Rainbow Fire of 1992 is shown on a smoky 21st of August in 2021, in Devils Postpile National Monument, Inyo National Forest, near Mammoth Lakes, California, USA. Smoke drifting from the bad Caldor, Dixie, and other fires frequently smarted our eyes during 3 weeks of hiking in the Eastern Sierra in August of 2021. On September 1, most of California's National Forests were unprecedentedly closed due to fire risk for two weeks! Decades of fire exclusion policies, years of below-normal snow and rainfall, a hot summer, and remote upslope location provided fuel and conditions ripe for the 1992 Rainbow Fire, a conflagration sparked by lightning strikes. Scientists warn that human-caused climate change has made the U.S. West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive.