 California has experienced frequent drought events, hotter temperatures, and other disruptions to its climate system. These changes have been widely reported in recent decades, but studies primarily focusing on specific vegetation communities or species, individual drought incidents, or analysis over a relatively short interval have limited our understanding of the broad-scale effects on tree cover and the spatio-temporal variability of these effects across broader regions. To address this gap, we focused analysis on multi-annual land cover and land surface change to assess patterns and trends in tree cover loss in tree-dominated Californian eco regions from 1986 to 2019. During this timeframe, the top three years of total tree cover loss for the state were 2018, 1901 square kilometers, 2015, 1556 square kilometers, and 2008, 1549 square kilometers. Overall, annual tree cover loss had upward trends. Tree cover loss rapidly surged later in the study period and was apparently driven by climate stress and wildfires. Underlying geographic variability was also apparent in both non-fire and fire-related. This article was authored by Francis K. Duomo, Roger F. Orch, Jesslyn F. Brown, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.