Rapid Loss of the Sierra Nevada's Largest Trees Driven by Fire

Fabien H. Wagner; Dan J. Dixon; Christopher W. Woodall; Mayumi C. M. Hirye; Felipe Saad; Griffin Carter; Ricardo Dalagnol; Lorena Alves; Cynthia Creze; Stephen C. Hagen; Zhihua Liu; Christopher Mihiar; Adugna Mullissa; Le Bienfaiteur Sagang Takougoum; Bryan Shaddy; Yan Yang; Dafeng Zhang; Sassan Saatchi

arXiv · 2609.17925

Rapid Loss of the Sierra Nevada's Largest Trees Driven by Fire

Fabien H. Wagner·Dan J. Dixon·Christopher W. Woodall·Mayumi C. M. Hirye·Felipe Saad·Griffin Carter·Ricardo Dalagnol·Lorena Alves·Cynthia Creze·Stephen C. Hagen·Zhihua Liu·Christopher Mihiar·Adugna Mullissa·Le Bienfaiteur Sagang Takougoum·Bryan Shaddy·Yan Yang·Dafeng Zhang·Sassan Saatchi

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Abstract

Large trees disproportionately contribute to biomass storage, habitat structure, and ecosystem functioning. However, their distribution and health dynamics remain poorly quantified at a regional scale. Here, a deep learning model (U-Net-ID) and canopy height models derived from sub-meter aerial imagery from 2020 were used to delineate all individual trees with crown area $\geq$ 100 m$^2$ across the Sierra Nevada Floristic Province. The model was trained using more than 3.3 million synthetic tree crowns and achieved a median Intersection over Union (IoU) of 0.602 when validated against an independent dataset of 20,273 crowns. A total of 6,515,705 large trees were mapped, occurring across approximately 78.7% of the Sierra Nevada Floristic Province. The spatial distribution of large trees showed associations with elevation, temperature, and precipitation. Using Sentinel-2 time series from 2020 to 2025, tree health dynamics were characterized by extracting spectral trajectories for each crown and applying BFAST breakpoint detection algorithm combined with a disturbance classification framework to identify mortality, disturbance, and recovery trajectories of individual trees. Wildfires, estimated from CAL FIRE fire perimeters, were identified as the dominant driver of large-tree mortality, killing 10% of all large trees in the Sierra Nevada, with mortality strongly concentrated during the extreme 2020-2021 fire seasons.

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Fabien H. Wagner, Dan J. Dixon, Christopher W. Woodall, Mayumi C. M. Hirye, Felipe Saad, Griffin Carter, Ricardo Dalagnol, Lorena Alves, Cynthia Creze, Stephen C. Hagen, Zhihua Liu, Christopher Mihiar, Adugna Mullissa, Le Bienfaiteur Sagang Takougoum, Bryan Shaddy, Yan Yang, Dafeng Zhang, Sassan Saatchi. 2026-09-15. Rapid Loss of the Sierra Nevada's Largest Trees Driven by Fire. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17925

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