California’s Wildfire-Driven Forest Loss Ranks Among the World’s Highest

California is now one of the global hotspots for wildfire‑driven deforestation, according to new research led by UC Davis forest and fire ecologist Dr. Hugh Safford. A study published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change finds that between 1991 and 2023, California lost an estimated 6–11% of its conifer forests, with rates of fire‑driven forest loss far exceeding the global average. In peak fire years since 2001, annual deforestation rates ranged from 0.25% to 0.47%, comparable to heavily fire‑impacted regions such as Russia and the Mediterranean. Alarmingly, reforestation has not kept pace—on U.S. Forest Service lands, less than 1–3% of the most severely burned areas have been replanted in recent years. Using advanced post‑fire regeneration modeling, the study highlights a growing risk of long‑term ecosystem transformation, particularly in high‑elevation forests critical for water supply, climate regulation, and biodiversity, underscoring the urgent need for expanded and reformed forest restoration efforts in California.