Indeed, there are many worthless eucalyptus trees in California. Although, I do like the Dr. Bronner eucalyptus/hemp liquid soap. I believe they thought that the eucalyptus trees could be used for railroad ties, which they cannot.

Most of the trees in the areas that are burning are either ancient redwoods or oaks that might a couple of hundred years old. Of course, the redwoods are way older and they actually might survive the fire.

While the woods are thick, there's a lot of 'empty' open areas that have chest high dried grasses that burn like crazy.

Along the park by a creek where I hike, every summer the park people bring in hundreds of sheep and goats to eat down the tall dried grasses. It's pretty cool to see the Australian border collies marshall those sheep and goats.

Anyway, there was a fire that started in a grassy area that had just been eaten down to nubs by the sheep and the goats. I think a model airplane crashed and burned. It was a very windy day. In fact, it was so windy that I cut my hike short. The fire ran across the grass nubs and into and across the creek burning some sycamore trees and eventually killing 4 horses before the fire was brought under control.

Here's some pictures of the burned area that had been eaten down to nubs.

(first picture has burnt goat turds)