Four years after the “Fry Fire” in the Pinaleno Mountains rendered these trees as externally charred skeletons, bark was sloughing off to reveal unburned core wood beneath. Nonetheless, the fire clearly burned hot enough, long enough, to kill the living pipeline under the bark that takes water and nutrients up the trees. As this is a dry climate, with only enough winter snow to sustain a forest on a mountainous desert “sky island,” and sporadic summer rains that evaporate easily, wood rot was seldom seen.
11 SW Cactus Flat AZ (5 Jul 21) Looking SW
32.6617, -109.8673