A third of National Park island home to rare wildlife has burned in spate of Southern California wildfires | CNN

A large wildfire has burned a third of Santa Rosa Island in California’s Channel Islands National Park — an area home to dozens of rare plants and animals, including some found nowhere else in the world. Officials believe the blaze, which ignited Friday and grew to 17,554 acres as of Thursday morning, may be the largest wildfire ever documented on Santa Rosa Island, National Park Service spokesperson Ana Cholo told CNN. It is also the largest fire in California this year, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “Fires of this size and magnitude are not considered common on Santa Rosa Island,” Cholo said. “The Channel Islands are not considered fire-adapted ecosystems in the same way many mainland Southern California ecosystems are.” The blaze was 44% contained on Thursday morning. Based on initial assessments, the island’s rare Torrey pine trees “still exist and remain largely intact,” according to the National Interagency Fire Center. However, high-intensity fire burned “small pockets” of the area. This critically endangered native pine species currently grows naturally only on Santa Rosa Island and a small preserve near San Di