Over the last two decades, California and the federal government have faced harsh criticism for failing to take stronger actions to stop a highly contagious disease that has killed millions of trees along coastal regions from Big Sur to portions of Oregon. Now, a new computer modeling study suggests that the "sudden oak death" epidemic, which emerged in 1995, has grown too big and is spreading too fast to eradicate statewide. The analysis is the first to integrate knowledge of the pathogen with topography, weather and resources like government budgets to predict the likely effects of various management strategies over such a large area -- in this case, California's 163,707 square miles of land. The results are somewhat hopeful: Because the epidemic's growth rate increases with its size, focusing on restoring and treating small, local forests is now the most practical and cost-effective option for managing the destructive fungus, Phtophthora ramorum. The findings were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.