I had/have an old pear tree, has been on the property for many years, I remember it being there when I was a kid. Never knew what kind of pear it was/is. Now the Kincade Fire, has damaged my fruit trees, all my trees and destroyed my cabin. In your experience, do you guys think this can come back?
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Here is the before shot
I had a small bowl of pears I had picked, sitting on the counter which all ripened and a good friend turned them into 4 jars of jam for me.
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it doesn’t look too badly damaged. wait till next spring and see what happens. may have to cut off any branches that don’t show growth. trees usually will bounce back from a fire if not burnt too severely. even if the whole tree is destroyed they usually sprout back from the roots.
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I agree; I suspect that it will recover just fine…
Really sorry to hear about the loss of your cabin and trees, @MountainMan.
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I am very sorry to hear about your loss. The tree very well may recover fire is a good tool for damaged areas in trees and can stimulate recovery at times and probably alot of rootstocks will pop back up.
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Thank you guys, and very encouraging for sure, would be great if it comes back.
there is an old Granny Smith tree, just as old that does not look bad, the area around it was weed eated well, but the pear tree was near a shed that housed the Outback Solar System, got a little warm over there.
I had a trailcam nearby, although damaged, it continued to take pictures, amazing.
here is a link to the images I made into a video https://vimeo.com/371010435 Winds near my cabin were clocked at 102 MPH
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Well the trees are dead, 3 pears, and the granny smith apple, along with an olive tree, 3 grape vines etc.
Tons of suckers popping up around the apple tree, and some around the two oldest pear trees, even a few around the olive tree.
The fire burned the center out of the apple tree, I started in on it with the chainsaw as it was all dry and brittle. As I worked on the tree, I found it was hollow and burned out, I cut a few logs off, and discovered a birds nest, with hatched and hatching eggs inside, so I stopped. I got out my screwdrill, and half a dozen deck screws and put the last hollow log I cut off back in place to protect the nest and babies inside. A while later, the parents returned and cared for the young bringing food to them.
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This pear is very similar looks like our Portuguese rocha pear… maby some Portuguese immigrant plant her…
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There is a hole in the opposite side of the trunk, where a branch had been removed years ago. This is where the fire got inside the tree I believe, and burned out the center. You can see where I reattached it.
And the mother looking out.
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Thank you, looks familiar
I have some seeds left over from the last pears, and am working on starting them.
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If you want i can send you scions on winter… i have 3 rocha pear trees. It’s the pear we love most! 
Thank You for the video, and I agree they look just like the Rocha Pear, This video led to several others, imagine that. These other videos convinced me more, but in no way do I know what I am doing.
Hoping the seeds take hold, I have 4 I am currently working on.
And thank you for the offer of the scions, however I believe getting them to USA-California would be a daunting task at the very least.
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So sorry for the loss but love your outlook on getting started again. Always very hard and best of luck buddy, maybe soaking the ground near it and adding some fertilizer could get the rootstock to show back up?
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Thank you Richard for the kind words.
There are tons of suckers shooting up around the apple tree, and some around the pear trees as well.
but what do you do with that?
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cut them down to 1 strong one. any that try to come up after that cut them all. let all the energy go to that 1 shoot. you should be able to get your trees back after all. 
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Yeah if its really old and from out west there is a chance that it was on its own roots or that part of the top grafted tree was rooted into the ground and it could be from those. Even if its not you can then graft that rocha pear to it maybe and then have your old tree back 
I would do what moose says and trim them up but maybe if they look like different trees and are on opposite parts of the tree keep a few types of growth?
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I trimmed the “suckers” around the apple tree and one of the pears down to just a few
I am going to give those a few days/weeks and see which one looks the strongest and then trim back a few more. There were so many, I did this with a hedge trimmer. I also went ahead and tried this on a Madrone tree that burned down and had a small bush of suckers coming off it. I hope it works well with the Madrone, as i have acres of them in the same state, along with white oaks.
Thank you for the suggestion Moose and Richard.
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i hope that something good comes out of this tragedy. if at least you can get some of your prized trees back, it will help you to get back to some normal in your life. good luck!
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