DAVID GREENE, HOST: Here in California last November, wildfires changed the landscape in some communities. In Malibu, parklands were scorched. But it rained a lot this winter, and as NPR's Mandalit del Barco reports, those same hills that were covered with wildfire are now covered with wildflowers.</s>MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: The last time I saw Ashley Lane, in November, she and her horses had just escaped the flames surrounding the Malibu Riders stables.</s>ASHLEY LANE: It was really scary.</s>MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Now she's back in the saddle again at Malibu Creek State Park.</s>ASHLEY LANE: I've never seen it this green before in my entire life. It reminds me of Ireland because it's so beautiful.</s>MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Emerald green grassland and golden California poppies carpet the hills. Though some trees are charred velvety black, water flows through the creek again.</s>MICHAEL CREADICK: These plants have evolved to spring back after a fire, and some of them don't even bloom until they've been burned.</s>MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Michael Creadick is a retired biology teacher who owns some land here. It burned, but he's back riding horses with his granddaughter.</s>MICHAEL CREADICK: Now the population of deer's going to go way back up, and the rabbits and all that other stuff, because of the grass. Fire's necessary. We don't like seeing houses burn up, but it's because people are moving into an area that's, for hundreds of thousands of years, has been evolving a fire ecology. So you got to just put up with that.</s>MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: After the fires, he says, there's rebirth.</s>MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Mandalit del Barco, NPR News.
Several months ago, the hills in Malibu were covered with wildfires. Now those same hills, which served as locations for M.A.S.H. and Planet of the Apes, are covered with wildflowers.