1,000+ Photos of What’s Growing Back

The Forest Service says natural regeneration is unlikely across roughly 4,900 acres of the Caldor burn area inside the Tahoe Basin. These photos are from the burn area above Meyers, including ground identified as high soil burn severity. As you browse them, please ask yourself whether this forest — forest that drains into Lake Tahoe — looks like it needs herbicide sprayed across thousands of acres.

The Forest Service justified its emergency determination partly on “the continued deterioration^* of forest stands in the Caldor Fire burn area.” These photos are about what’s growing in the Caldor now. As you browse them, please ask yourself whether this forest — forest that drains into Lake Tahoe — looks like it needs glyphosate sprayed across thousands of acres.

I took these photos in September and October 2026. They aren’t every seedling I came across. While walking, I spaced the photos out so that map points^** wouldn’t overlap. This is just a sample of what’s out there; there’s far more than I could ever photograph.

Note that these photos are mostly of conifer seedlings, because that’s what the Forest Service says is missing. But a forest is more than just conifers — the chaparral, the snags^*, and the wildlife using both are the forest too.

In the five years since the Caldor Fire, here’s what I’ve observed of the forest’s natural recovery:

1) Chaparral is holding soil in place. Runoff was a serious problem in the year after the fire, when the ground was bare. Removing the chaparral now would return us to that condition. Chaparral also pulls nutrients back into the burnt soil, part of natural reforestation. And it’s native to Tahoe.

2) Conifers are already growing among the chaparral. In most chaparral areas, seedlings are plentiful and seem to thrive in the filtered light and shelter of nearby plants. As the conifers grow taller and shade the ground, the chaparral will thin out on its own. You can see this relationship wherever trees survived the fire: less light reaching the ground means less undergrowth.

3) Higher-elevation areas and mountain tops typically have sparser vegetation. Where chaparral is thinner, the limited ground cover is vital for holding soil. It’s hard to see any case for removing it there by any means.

4) Some areas have very dense conifer seedlings and limited chaparral. That density could become a concern near homes in the future, though I haven’t seen any such areas close to homes. And hand clippers are all it would take to thin them now if desired.

5) Some chaparral areas have noticeably fewer conifers coming up than others. These are likely the areas targeted for herbicide. But when I see such areas, my first thought is: how much herbicide would all this take? There are better ways. If speeding up reforestation matters in such areas, crews can manually clear just the spot where each tree will be planted. Note that the one such area I’ve found has a stream running directly through it.

In every case, herbicide should be removed from the Forest Service’s “restoration” toolbox entirely in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

* The Forest Service also justified its Emergency Action Determination partly on “the continued deterioration of forest stands in the Caldor Fire burn area.” The term “continued deterioration” refers to the still standing dead trees, also known as snags. From what I’ve seen, those snags are full of life — woodpeckers and other birds are using them now, and as they fall they become habitat for animals on the ground. “Deterioration” is the word the Forest Service chose, but that deterioration is a natural part of how a burned forest rebuilds itself.

** Map locations should be considered approximate. A phone’s GPS accuracy can vary from the exact spot depending on terrain and satellite signal.

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