Ancient Californian tree that has lived for 13,000 years and survived the Ice Age is now in grave danger due to modern-day crisis

The oldest living organism in California is not a dinosaur or one of its iconic redwoods - it's a small oak shrub that survived the most recent Ice Age.

Despite its resilience, the Jurupa Oak is now in danger of going the way of the Dodo, due to devastating wildfires and a 900-acre development now being considered.

The plan, titled the Rio Vista Specific, would put more than 1,600 new housing units smack dab in the Jurupa's natural habitat.

Environmentalists have painted the 1.4-square mile development as the biggest threat to the tree since the extinction event nearly 12,800 years ago.

Estimated to be somewhere between 13,000 and 18,000 years old, the tree is older than almost any other plant on the planet Earth.

'The main thing that strikes me is that we're literally looking at a bit of what the world was like in the ice age,' UC Riverside scientist Andrew Sanders said of the unassuming shrub in an interview with ABC 7 in 2009, when he and other scientists first calculated the tree's impressive lineage.

'We don't have to look at a fossil in this case, [but] we can see the living individuals.'

That said, most of the tree is underground, with what's visible serving as just the crown of an ancient tree that spans some 90 feet long and 30 feet wide.   

The collection of shrubs sits atop a hill that overlooks Jurupa Valley, just a stone's throw from the desired building site.

The Planning Commission of Jurupa Valley, a city of 100,000, is poised to approve it, to make the rocky gully an hour east of Los Angeles more habitable.

The site's developer has said it plans to protect the tree, but environmentalists - already wary of damage caused by increased wildfires in the region - remain skeptical.

Aaron Echols, conservation chair for the Riverside-San Bernardino chapter of the California Native Plant Society, told both ABC and The Washington Post the construction could prove deadly to the Jurupa Oak. 

'It's unique among most things on the planet,' he said of California's oldest conifer. 'We need to be absolutely sure that we're not going to cause harm to this plant.'

 Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, a professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California at Davis, added 'It's sort of a philosophical question,' citing the difference between the system of what is essentially one plant and more traditional trees.

Unlike  normal trees, he said, the tree will spring out new, genetically identical offshoots from burned stumps - none of which will bear the original tree's tissue

'If I have a tree in my backyard and I cut it down and a stem comes back up from it, I would generally think it's the same tree,' he said of the resulting ethical predicament.

'But if you do it 10,000 times in a row, is it still the same tree?'

The shrubs, meanwhile, despite sitting in the South California sun for more than a millennium, was only actually identified in the 90s - by local botanist Mitch Provance.

It took nearly two more decades, however, to calculate the tree's immense age, making it either the fourth- or third- oldest organism in the entire world.

While perhaps a suitable environment back then, the rocky ridge today overlooks a series of warehouses and horse trails, and is common site for off-road revelers.

One resident, Jenny Iyer, told the Post how she does not approve of the project due to the tree's history.

'We have discovered a treasure on the world stage here in our humble city,' she said of the shrub whose leaves at one point may have been brushed up against saber-toothed tigers.

'Will one of the oldest living beings on the planet die just because Jurupa Valley okays industrial and business parks next to it?' 

Tim Krantz, the conservation director for the Wildlands Conservancy, added how the tree receives sustenance from groundwater trickling down its nearby hills, which are set to be covered with asphalt and concrete if the plan goes through.

This could halt the flow of groundwater, he said - potentially killing the tree forever. 

The developer, Richland Communities, continues to insist this is not the case, and promises that it will take painstaking measure to ensure the tree is protected.

'Not approving the project does not protect the tree,' Jeremy Krout, a representative for the company, said at a recent meeting. 

'If the project doesn't get approved, you won't have the protection; there won't be a responsible party to protect the tree.' 

He has promised not to build within 200 feet of the tree's last remaining remnants, which Echols on Wednesday reiterated has already been ravaged by wildfires as of late.

The developer, meanwhile, has vowed to keep construction equipment 259 feet away from the tree's edge, and to give the land immediately around the tree to a nonprofit, along with an endowment of $250,000 to protect it.  

Amid these wildfires, California's largest insurer, State Farm, a few days ago asked California's Department of Insurance to let them raise home insurance rates for millions or face them pulling coverage from the state.

The move indicates a growing insurance crisis in California, brought by the intensifying risk of climate disasters and climate change-fueled wildfires.

State Farm, however, was the first to pushback on the concept of automatic coverage in the state, which was subjected to 7,127 fires in 2023.

That was slightly down from the year before when 7,667 fires ravaged California - a relative 'quiet' year according to officials in terms of acreage.

In 2021, a total of 8,835 fires were recorded in California - one of the worst-ever years on record.

'It's mind-boggling, it really is — that we have this treasure that is not being protected,' Arleen Pruitt, chair of the Planning Commission, said a recent meeting in defense of the Jurupa Oak. 

'It represents endurance and perseverance,' Krantz added to the Post. 'It's survived fires and droughts and, ultimately, climate change. 

'And yet here she is throughout all of that -very much like the hardscrabble people of Jurupa Valley.

'Just trying to get by.'