Ask

The semi-rural property I live on (low rent) burnt down so I had to evacuate. But I came back because the building I was in was mostly unharmed somehow. That was a few years ago now so it's been a good amount of time for life to rebound from the fires, but everything has deeply changed since then. It used to be quite lush with green plant life everywhere even in the Summer and Fall. A lot of plants have come back, as expected, but not the lush green foliage, it's all dry grasses and invasive weeds now. It's like living in a completely different biome to what it used to be like here. There used to be a sheen of moisture on everything, now it's a patina of dust.

It's SO much more dry and barren so inevitably the animal life completely changed too. As an example, we used to get these big banana slugs. It may sound gross to some, but they were really fascinating and colorful creatures. I haven't seen one for years, even before the fires it was drying out and they couldn't survive. Now if you brought one from somewhere else and set it here, it would be dead and desiccated within hours. The kinds of insects you could find has completely changed too. Not just in the types, but in a lack of diversity. There used to be this huge variety of beetles and crickets, centipedes, silkworms, butterflies and moths. Now those are mostly all gone and only the earwigs dominate. There are still moths, but only like 2 kinds instead of 20. I try to keep a little garden, and I've noticed there are even fewer earthworms than there used to be. It's sad. It genuinely feels like some kind of slow death in a way.