NPR : Recovery Begins at San Diego’s Scorched Orchards

On the other side of the interstate is a large palm tree nursery. Only thin trunks remain. And large stands of green forests on the hillsides and hilltops are marked by great stretches of brown. But they only look like forests to the untrained eye.

“Those are avocados there at the top of the hill,” Larson says. “What’s interesting about San Diego County is we don’t have any native forests here. So when you see the sides or the tops of hills green, those are going to be avocado trees, 25,000 acres of them scattered across the county.”

The avocado trees are a gift of irrigation. California grows most of the nation’s avocados, and San Diego County produces most of those. Many acres of avocado trees have been roasted by wild fires in the last week. The fruit hangs shriveled and brown from drooping limbs. In one orchard, the leaves are still tinted a faint green. Larson snaps off a limb.”*

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