This US island is home to flora found nowhere else. Now, a wildfire threatens extinction: watching with trepidation'

A grove of several thousand Torrey pine trees grows on the south-eastern corner of Santa Rosa Island, with some trees older than 250 years. The only other location on Earth with Torrey pines is in San Diego County, but the two groves are classified as different subspecies. A rare wildfire broke out late last week and firefighters worked to prevent it from spreading into the grove. The 18,000-acre fire has burned nearly one-third of the island, and biologists are concerned because part of the island contains six plants found nowhere else on the planet. Wildfires rarely occur on the Channel Islands, so conservationists question whether these endemic species have adaptations to survive severe burns.

"On the south-eastern corner of Santa Rosa Island lies a grove of a few thousand Torrey pine trees, some of them more than 250 years old. The only other place on earth where these gnarled pines exist is in San Diego county, but biologists classify the two groves as different subspecies. So when a rare wildfire broke out on Santa Rosa Island late last week, firefighters raced to keep it from spreading into the grove, where it threatened to consign the island's Torrey pines to extinction."

"So far, they appear to be succeeding even as the 18,000-acre fire has torched nearly one-third of the island's surface. But biologists who have studied Santa Rosa Island's unique ecology are watching anxiously as the fire continues to burn a part of the island that is home to six plants found nowhere else on the planet. We're all watching this with a little bit of trepidation, said Dr Heather Schneider, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden's director of research and conservation."

"Biologists widely view Channel Islands national park as a unique success story, where rare native plants made a resounding comeback in recent decades after more than a century of pummeling by non-native livestock and imported wild game animals. Today, the Channel Islands are home to dozens of endemic plants species that grow only there. Six of them, including the Torrey pines, grow on Santa Rosa Island alone. Ten per cent of the island's plants are considered rare, according to Schneider."

"Wildfires rarely occur on the Channel Islands, raising questions among conservationists about whether the rare species found there have the evolutionary adaptations needed to withstand a severe burn. The threat to species found nowhere else on earth Santa Rosa Island's Torrey pine grove has attracted the most attention. But the fire threaten"

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