Our Famously Indigenous Neighbor: The Monterey Pine
Wild Monterey Pines still stand on the Monterey Peninsula near the cool foggy shorelines of Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach and Carmel. Here, they are as diverse as most human communities. They can be majestic or scruffy, straight or bent, tall or bushy, clustered or stand-offish.
Monterey Pines are also one of the most cultivated trees in the world. Farmers select tall straight varieties that are best for producing timber or short crooked varieties that are best for punctuating landscape. Monterey Pines' roots are particularly useful for controlling erosion on hillsides. Their dense foliage is perfect for blocking unsighltly elements of otherwise inspiring views, say, within housing sub-divisions.
While Monterey Pines can grow to be 90 feet and live for 200 years in the wild, domesticated varieties tend to be more susceptible to sickness and untimely death, more so the farther they are removed from their native habitats. They can be the favorite food of at least 58 insects and host for as many as 18 deadly viruses. Their most active enemy recently has been the Pitch Canker fungus. Pitch Canker is probably the reason that so many cultivated Monterey Pines along highways or in yards are turning brown at their limb tips and are bleeding sap.
Like any of their kind, dead or dying Monterey Pines, with their high resin content, are particularly flammable when dry and present very great hazards for wildfire.
The Monterey Pine, itself, has no fear of natural fires of the sorts that humans have been preventing. On the contrary, it has adapted for survival against the kind of fire that nature uses where it is left to its own devices. Its cones are of such a design that they resist burning under moderate flame but open explosively under heat to disburse their seed upon the charred and freshly cleansed ground.
One can observe this effect today at the top of Huckleberry Hill along Route 68 off Highway 1 at Carmel where part of the Del Monte Forest burned in Pebble Beach in 1987. Tens of thousands of saplings sprouted within a year of that fire and are now juveniles standing more than 12 feet tall barely one foot apart. Luckily, this was a relatively cool burning fire that proper grooming of the forest and reasonable security could have prevented.
Even so, we cannot forget that thirty-two homes were lost there in a matter of hours where Monterey Pines, both wild and cultivated, grew within 100 feet of them.
Perhaps we live among the Monterey Pines because we’ve moved into their wild stands or planted their domesticated cousins on the hillsides where we’ve built our homes. In either case, we need to learn to attend to their well-being before wildfire does.
We especially need to be able to read the signs of sickness in our Monterey Pines and the dangers they may come to pose to our homes. In any event, we need to take all measures to reduce the ground fuels within 100 feet of our living spaces. The public’s need for taking such care is great enough that property owners obligations for creating fire safe space around houses have been written into public law.
The Monterey Fire Safe Council can provide you more information on how best to protect your neighborhood against wildfire and where to get help doing it. Contact us by e-mail if you would like an individual assessment of your property's fire safety by an agency professional or certified contractor.