YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, California — With more than 140 million trees killed in California by drought and plagues of beetles over the past decade — 2.4 million of them in Yosemite alone — forestry experts describe the state’s forests as wounded and extremely vulnerable. Now, as the state suffers another severe drought, Yosemite seems perennially under siege by fire and smoke. …Ms. Muldoon says that more aggressive steps need to be taken than before to make the forests of Yosemite more resilient. But she and the park’s management will first have to prevail in court. A judge this month temporarily halted the park’s biomass removal efforts, as the tree cutting was euphemistically known, in response to a lawsuit filed by an environmental group based in Berkeley, Calif., that argues that the park did not properly review the impacts. The thinning project covers less than 1 percent of Yosemite’s forests. [to access the full story a NY Times subscription is required].