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CALIFORNIA FORESTER Meghan Breniman stood in front of a group of landowners on a hillside in the Sierra Nevada Mountains devastated by forest fire. Clutching a tree-planting tool in one hand and her toddler’s hand in the other, she coached the group on the proper technique for planting seedlings, demonstrating how to aggressively tamp down the soil around the roots to remove air.

Steve Haze stood on a pullout on Auberry Road, near the small town of Pine Ridge, in the foothills east of Fresno. He pointed to a yawning panorama of charred trees—the remnants of last year’s devastating Creek Fire. 

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) — “It still makes me sad because even if you didn’t lose a home, a business, a cabin, you still lost a forest and I think that’s what people who stop here and see everything, it’s just changed.”

Foresters Julianne Stewart and Meghan Breniman are inspecting a white fir tree. The top branches are green and the bottom singed, probably dead.

That’s a good thing.