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

Firefighters are racing to douse flames on Santa Rosa Island as experts express concern for survival of its unique habitat 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 rac...

By Roque Planas