This investigation was originally published by The Plumas Sun and Bay Nature , a nonprofit news outlet that connects San Francisco Bay Area residents more deeply with the natural world.

A white-headed woodpecker stirs the dawn quiet, hammering at a patch of charred bark stretching 15 feet up the trunk of a ponderosa pine. The first streaks of sun light the tree’s green crown, sending beams across this grove of healthy conifers. The marks of the 2021 Dixie Fire are everywhere. Several blackened trees lie toppled among the pale blossoms of deer brush and the spikes of snow plants, their crimson faded to dusky coral.

Flames raged through neighboring forests, exploding the tops of trees, flinging sparks down the mountainside until, on August 4, 2021, the fire itself reached the

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