Oooookay. Now this is gonna sound silly, because the answer I’m sure is right in front of me. But how do trees + plants express a reversal local entropy? Don’t they grow in the path of least resistance sort of like how fire moves? Just at a much slower rate of absorbing fuel.
They convert chemicals in ‘uphill’ directions - consider photosynthesis - they contain concentrations of energy in the form of chemical bonds (that can be made to do work when they are broken). Of course, the system as a whole requires a net input of energy in the form of sunlight, and it’s inefficient - not all of the solar energy ends up being stored).
But the second law of thermodynamics allows entropy in a system to decrease if there is a net input of energy - i.e. if it isn’t a closed system.
Think about how they look on the microscopic level. As trees grow, they’re creating cellular structure. Fire, in contrast, destroys structure. I’m using a pretty sloppy definition of entropy, but that’s the gist of it.
I’m not sure this makes sense as a definition of life, though. Entropy in a (non-isolated) system can decrease for lots of reasons. If you put a hot object in contact with a cold one, the hot one’s entropy decreases as it loses heat. (The cold one’s entropy will increase by a greater amount, so the total entropy still increases.) Even if we were to say “Life reduces local entropy without tending towards thermal equilibrium”, so does an air conditioner.