The persistent drought in California over the past six years has left the state with 66 million dead trees.
According to a recent US Forest Service and Detection survey, the southern Sierra Nevada is now the graveyard of tens of millions of dead trees. Authorities reported that 40 million trees died in the state from 2010 to October 2015, and an additional 26 million perished from October 2015 to present.
Four consecutive years of severe drought, an alarming rise in bark beetle infestation, and generally warmer temperatures caused the mass die-off. Water deprivation, officials said, has made the trees vulnerable to beetle attacks.
The survey covered six southern Sierra counties including Fresno, Kern, Madera, Mariposa, Tuolumne and Tulare.
These conditions make the area ripe for more wildfires, which have already razed parts of California in the past weeks and caused serious damage to property.
