Firefighters Struggling to Save California Giant Sequoias

Ahmad El-Assasy

In an attempt to safeguard a famed grove of huge old-growth sequoias from wildfires burning in California's steep Sierra Nevada, firefighters wrapped the base of the world's largest tree in a fire-resistant blanket.

According to fire spokeswoman Rebecca Paterson, the huge General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park's Giant Forest, as well as some other sequoias, the Giant Forest Museum, and other facilities were wrapped for protection against the threat of strong flames.

For brief periods of time, the metal wrapping can tolerate intense heat. According to federal officials, the substance has been used to safeguard important structures from flames in the United States West for several years. Some residences encased in protective sheeting near Lake Tahoe escaped a recent wildfire, while others nearby were destroyed.

According to fire officials, the Colony Fire, one of two raging in Sequoia National Park, was projected to reach the Giant Forest, a forest of 2,000 sequoias, within days.

The fire, however, did not spread considerably Thursday morning due to a layer of smoke, according to fire spokeswoman Katy Hooper.

It comes after a wildfire in the region last year devastated thousands of sequoia trees, some as tall as high-rise buildings and thousands of years old.

According to the National Park Service, the General Sherman Tree is the world's largest by volume, measuring 52,508 cubic feet (1,487 cubic metres). It stands 275 feet (84 metres) tall and has a ground circumference of 103 feet (31 metres).

During training for firefighters, Superintendent Clay Jordan of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks emphasised the significance of preserving the giant trees from high-intensity fire.

Prescribed burns in the parks' sequoia groves, which have been used for 50 years to eliminate other types of trees and plants that would otherwise feed wildfires, were anticipated to assist the huge trees survive by reducing the damage if flames reached them.

A “robust fire history of prescribed in that area is a reason for optimism,” Paterson said. “Hopefully, the Giant Forest will emerge from this unscathed.”

Fire-adapted giant sequoias can help them survive by releasing seeds from their cones and creating clearings where young sequoias can grow. However, fires of unprecedented severity, exacerbated by climate change, maybe too much for the trees to handle.

According to the National Park Service, the Castle Fire last year killed between 7,500 and 10,600 huge sequoias, according to research.

Wildfires in the American West have become more difficult to put out as a result of a catastrophic drought and heatwaves linked to climate change.

Climate change, according to scientists, has made the region significantly warmer and drier in the last 30 years and will continue to make weather more intense and wildfires more common and devastating in the future.

The fight against the 11.5-square-mile (30-square-kilometer) Paradise Fire and the 3-square-mile (8-square-kilometer) Colony Fire, which was closest to the grove, was taken over by a national interagency fire management team. In that location, operations were carried out to burn vegetation and other fuel sources that could have fed the fires.

The park was forced to be evacuated this week due to the flames, and areas of Three Rivers outside the main entrance were also evacuated.

A fire on the Tule River Indian Reservation and in Giant Sequoia National Monument to the south spread dramatically overnight to more than 6 square miles (15 square kilometres), according to a Sequoia National Forest statement, and personnel had little control over it.

The Windy Fire, which was also caused by lightning, burnt across a section of the Peyrone Sequoia Grove in the national monument, threatening adjoining groves.

“Due to inaccessible terrain, a preliminary assessment of the fire’s effects on giant sequoia trees within the grove will be difficult and may take days to complete,” the statement said.

The fire prompted the Tulare County Sheriff's Office to issue an evacuation notice to the villages of Ponderosa, Quaking Aspen, Johnsondale, and Camp Whitsett, a Boy Scout camp.

The blazes are among the most recent in a protracted summer of fires that have burnt nearly 3,550 square miles (9,195 square kilometres) of California, damaging hundreds of houses.

The Colony Fire had limited ground access, while the extreme steepness of the terrain surrounding the Paradise Fire barred it entirely, necessitating substantial airborne water and flame-retardant drops on both flames. The KNP Complex was in charge of both fires at the same time.