Camino Nursery Helps Regrow California Forest Trees Lost To Wildfires

CAMINO (CBS13) — The King Fire burned more than 200 square miles of forest in September, destroying nearly 100,000 acres of trees.

Now, a local nursery is helping regrow that forest and replace those lost trees.

It starts with tiny sugar pine seedlings that will one day blossom and be placed back on the once charred land.

The U.S. Forest Service raises more than 3 million trees each year to replace area hit hard by massive wildfires.

Seed manager Sara Wilson shows off row after row of future forest.

She and others raise trees for federal forests throughout the state. The nursery is one of six like it across the country.

"Every forest will have their requirement for how tall they want the tree to be, and what size they want the stem to be," she said.

Seeds are collected throughout the year in case there is a fire in any given forest.

Staff pluck pick and sift seeds, looking for the best ones, even X-raying them to spot flaws.

More than 85,000 pounds of seeds are kept in the zero-degree freezer. It's all documented, and when foresters call after a fire, seeds are planted, and a year later shipped off to replace what the fire destroyed.

Orders for the King Fire haven't come in yet, but that call and being a part of the regrowth process will mean a lot to Wilson.

"It's hard to see your home forest burn, I grew up in Pollock Pines so this is my place, so it's hard to see all that loss," she said.