We’re working on this article about wildfires from the perspective of a tulip tree in Gangwon province. It’s okay at the moment but could still be much more journalistic and engaging. Currently it feels like it’s lacking a clear direction or subject matter, we never really properly explain what causes wildfires or what the actual aftermath is. Feel like this needs to remain the focus of the article even though talking about background and tulip species traits is still important.
Here’s the current draft:
Part 1
I am Liriodendron tulipifera, rooted halfway up a southeastern ridge in Korea’s Gangwon Province.
For countless growing seasons I have recorded the rhythms of sun, snow, warmth and frost into annual rings, but never have my roots felt a story as unsettling as the one they record today. Yesterday’s sun beat down upon my leaves at XX Wm², my bark wrapped by an air temperature of XX °C, in mid April; a heat that once belonged to high summer. The vapor‑pressure deficit climbed to XX kPa, stealing moisture from my every stoma. Even before a flame appears, drought and dehydration signal the approaching fires.
Part 2
I have lived through four great burns: 2000, 2019, 2022, and most recently the inferno of 2025. The last roared up the valley 17 days earlier than the old seasonal norm and lingered 8 days longer, urged on by wind gusts at XX m s⁻¹ from the northwest. Fire has always thinned the mountains, but its new ferocity is something else: hotter soils and lower atmospheric pressure fronts that drop abruptly, pumping oxygen to the flames. Through these last long hot months, my canopy crown cracks, my leaves only feel a fleeting wetness.
Part 3
My defense starts with bark nearly a centimeter thick; a trait I rely on while neighboring pines ignite like candles. My leaves can carry high water content, retaining moisture and making ignition harder. If crown and stem perish, roots below will push new shoots, so long as soil‑water content stays bearable. Yet I am no immortal: in my sapling years, when bark is thinner than 2.5 mm, even a mild re-burn scalds me to the root. Restoration crews must act quickly, targeted fertilization that aids my leader growth, letting me reach a fire safe size in half the time.
Part 4
I do not stand alone. Oak neighbors resprout after every scorch; shrubs knit the understory, helping with the humidity on still mornings. Together we break the ladder fuels that let ground fire climb to the canopy. Monoculture pine stands once promised timber riches, but their combustible needles shed, fueling their future flames. Mixed forests behave differently: when a hot front arrives, broadleaf firebreaks stagger flame height and shift wind direction at trunk level, buying precious hours for human firefighters and for us. Mycorrhizal fungal threads meanwhile ferry phosphorus and warnings, an underground alarm.
Part 5
Korea’s emerging strategy leans toward forest mosaics: replacing pine-dominated monocultures with diverse, mixed-species stands. Tulip trees like me are to be planted on moist, gentle slopes, where our deep roots anchor soil and our broad leaves cool the understory. Along ridgelines and fire corridors, broadleaf firebreaks made of oak, maple, and my sibling Tulips can form buffers to slow and scatter flames. Site selection is not aesthetic or economic, it’s essential. Canopy trees are chosen not just for how they grow, but for how they resist. The vision is clear: forests planned for growth as well as resistance, where no single species holds the line alone, and carbon can be stored safely in layered wood, not lost to fire and collapse.
Part 6
My heartwood remembers winters when snow lay XXXXm deep, an insulating quilt that held soils at XX °C and buffered us from the worst of the cold. That snow lingered, slow to melt, letting spring unfold at a measured pace. Now, the cover is XXXXcm thin and fleeting. Sudden frost drives deep into the unprotected ground, cracking roots and halting early growth. Then comes the thaw, too fast, too early, coaxing buds to swell before the threat has passed. Each misstep costs energy I cannot spare. Seasons no longer arrive, they stumble. And with every year of erratic weather, I lose a little more sense of the rhythm I once trusted. I can bend, but eventually I will break.
Look up, visitor: my tallest leaf trembles at 4 meters, photosynthesizing and cooling the air each summer day. I am a witness that can also be a remedy. Plan with us, not in spite of us, and the rings you read next century may tell a story of survival rather than surrender. We have burned, we have endured, and we have warned.
Lets go into more detail regarding past wildfires, statistics and information; and then much more information about the fires and conditions leading to the fires in 2025.
“I have lived through four great burns: 2000, 2019, 2022, and most recently the inferno of 2025. The last roared up the valley 17 days earlier than the old seasonal norm and lingered 8 days longer, urged on by wind gusts at XX m s⁻¹ from the northwest.”