Despite rains, California's forests remain in dire health.

California has experienced the driest and warmest years on record since 2020, which, among other things, is bad news for the state's forests: On Feb. 7, the U.S. Forest Service announced that officials had identified approximately 36.3 million trees that died in California in 2022 on federal, state and private lands. 

Despite that overall bad news, a December 2022 USFS report shows that of the 36.3 million trees that died in the state last year, only 6,300 of them were in Monterey County. The same USFS report from 2021 didn't identify the total statewide—it was broken into counties and national forests—showed that 3,000 trees died in Monterey County that year. 

The climate change-exacerbated threat to the state's—and the county's—forests isn't expected to relent anytime soon in the absence of sustained precipitation.

"Even with the recent storms from atmospheric rivers, increased tree mortality should be expected in forests until precipitation returns to normal or above normal for a few years," USFS's Feb. 7 statement reads. 

USFS adopted a national "Wildfire Crisis Strategy" which identified forests most at risk, and which are near infrastructure and communities. Seven such forests have been identified thus far in California, none of which are in Monterey County. 

Those efforts include thinning trees and spraying insecticide on the bark of high value trees, and the Forest Service estimates over $500 million will be spent on them through 2026.  

Additionally, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a budget last September that included $1.3 billion over two years to increase forest health and wildfire resilience.