Fire isn't always bad.

I visited Sequoia National Park (and King’s Canyon) last week. The trees were magnificent, but I was more fascinated by what these giant sequoias needed to grow: fire.

A “good” fire leads to a healthy destruction of the forest floor, reducing competition for light and water for younger sequoias. The heat from the fire also causes sequoia cones to release seeds onto the newly exposed soil.

A “bad” fire can take down these fire-resistant titans. The intense wildfires of the last few years killed thousands of giant sequoias, about 20% of the population. These trees previously stood for over a thousand years. Staggering. You can still the acres of what look like burned out matchsticks spread out across the valley.

There’s an analogy somewhere in here. I’m too tired to find it.

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P.S. Three of the first four national parks protected sequoias, so the National Park Service logo features the sequoia silhouette. I love this detail. And studying this logo was a refreshing break from modern logos that strip away character and ornamentation in order to look minimalist (bland). I’m guilty of practicing design minimalism for most of my career.

P.P.S. For scale, that’s me in a grove of sequoias called “The House” on the Congress Trail.