California's wildfires have killed as many as 14,000 mature giant sequoias over the past five years. Photo / 123rf
California fire crews are scrambling to save a grove of giant sequoias that is being threatened by a forest fire in the Sierra Nevada.
They are going so far as to surround the trees with sprinklers and dispatch specialised firefighters to climb trees and extinguish embers.
Giant sequoias have been killed in stunning numbers in recent years, with devastating wildfires destroying roughly a fifth of all mature sequoias since 2020.
The revered trees, which grow only in California on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, are the world’s largest and can live for thousands of years.
Today, the Garnet fire, which has been burning in the Sierra National Forest for two weeks and now reaches across nearly 22,255ha east of Fresno, reached a grove that is home to roughly 165 giant sequoias, said Joe Zwierzchowski, a spokesperson with the United States Forest Service.
Some of the trees in the 40ha grove are estimated to be 2000 years old, with the tallest rising more than 70m, according to the non-profit Save the Redwoods League.
A week ago, firefighters installed a sprinkler system at the site that has been running day and night, Zwierzchowski said. It has significantly increased the humidity in the grove, making it much more difficult for the fire to burn the trees, he said.
Crews have also removed underbrush, pine needles and other debris that could help fuel the fire.
Gino Degraffenreid, an operations chief on the fire, said in a briefing yesterday that firefighters working near the grove were trying to keep the fire at “the lowest intensity possible to save those trees”.
Embers from the advancing blaze later lodged in the branches of several sequoias, and crews fought the flames until it became unsafe to do so today, Zwierzchowski said.
No trees were fully on fire, he said.
The US Forest Service has enlisted a team of firefighters known as smokejumpers to climb the trees and extinguish embers that might be burning the branches or leaves, Zwierzchowski said.
Smokejumpers normally drop into hard-to-reach fire zones by parachute but will reach the McKinley Grove by vehicle this week.
They were summoned in part because they have been trained to climb up and down trees during fires, which they have to do because their parachutes often get stuck in the branches, he said.
“They’re used to climbing up, grabbing them and coming back down,” he said. “This is something they’re skilled in — it’s pretty neat.”
In 2021, firefighters swaddled giant sequoias in flame-retardant foil. That included General Sherman — considered the world’s biggest tree at 275ft (83.8m), with a diameter of 36ft 11m at the base — in Sequoia National Park.
General Sherman was spared.
Sequoias are environmentally adapted to fire and normally rely on heat from the flames to help them release seeds from their cones in order to reproduce. However, the trees have been no match for California fires in recent years.
They have grown so destructive — a result of the effects of climate change as well as years of fire suppression, leaving forests thick with flammable vegetation — that they have killed trees once thought to be invincible.
As many as 14,000 mature giant sequoias have been killed over the past five years.
It has been nearly 100 years since there was a fire in McKinley Grove, and a recent drought has left the grove parched and at high risk, according to Ben Bloom, director of stewardship and restoration for Save the Redwoods League.
“Even with the team’s heroic efforts, this grove remains highly at risk,” he said in a statement.
Zwierzchowski said that there had been 165 known sequoias in the McKinley Grove. But when firefighters were clearing brush last week they found a 166th, a newly emerged baby sequoia.
“It’s a very special grove, just like all of the sequoias are special,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Soumya Karlamangla
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