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“We need to call this situation in the giant sequoia what it is: an emergency," said league President Sam Hodder. Save the Redwoods League, which lost the Waterfall tree - one of the world's largest - in 2020, suffered losses this year in its Red Hill Grove. Many damaged trees are expected to perish in three to five years. Canopies have faded from vibrant green to a rusty shade.
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Groves with the worst damage stand like timber graveyards with blackened trunks soaring high in the sky. “That’s even more heartbreaking to me that we knew it and we couldn’t take action to protect it,” Brigham said. The inferno became so intense it created a fire cloud that whipped up 60 mph (97 kph) winds.Ī fire ecologist accurately predicted the areas that would burn hottest, but nothing could be done in such erratic conditions to save trees in the second-largest grove, said Christy Brigham, chief of resource management and science for the parks. The greatest amount of damage was done in Redwood Mountain Grove in Kings Canyon National Park. The Starvation Complex of groves in Sequoia National Forest was largely destroyed. The bulk of the Suwanee grove in the park burned in extreme fire in the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River drainage. The measures helped spare the Giant Forest, the premiere grove of massive trees in the park, but the measures couldn't be deployed everywhere. Sprinklers watered trunks and flammable matter was raked away from trees. The General Sherman tree - the largest living thing on earth - and other ancients that are the backdrop for photos that rarely capture the grandeur and scale of the giant sequoias were wrapped in foil blankets.Ī fire-retardant gel, similar to absorbent used in baby's diapers, was dropped on canopies that can sit above 200 feet (60 meters) tall. Fires burned from August last year into January.Īfter last year's Castle and SQF Complex fires took officials by surprise - and drove some tree lovers to tears - extraordinary measures were taken to save the largest and oldest trees this year. Tree deaths this year might have been worse if heavy rain and snow Oct. Last year set a record for most acreage burned and this year, so far, is running second. To ensure that they're around for our kids and grandkids and great grandkids, some action is necessary.”Ĭalifornia has seen its largest fires in the past five years. “As spectacular as these trees are we really can't take them for granted. “The sobering reality is that we have seen another huge loss within a finite population of these iconic trees that are irreplaceable in many lifetimes,” said Clay Jordan, superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. A warming planet that has created hotter droughts combined with a century of fire suppression that choked forests with thick undergrowth have fueled flames that have sounded the death knell for trees dating to ancient civilizations. Losses now account for 13% to 19% of the 75,000 sequoias greater than 4 feet (1.2 meters) in diameter.īlazes so intense to burn hot enough and high enough to kill so many giant sequoias - trees once considered nearly fire-proof - puts an exclamation point on climate change's impact. Nearby wildfires last year killed an unprecedented 7,500 to 10,400 giant sequoias that are only native in about 70 groves scattered along the western side of the Sierra Nevada range. LOS ANGELES - (AP) - Lightning-sparked wildfires killed thousands of giant sequoias this year, leading to a staggering two-year death toll that accounts for up to nearly a fifth of Earth's largest trees, officials said Friday.įires in Sequoia National Park and surrounding Sequoia National Forest tore through more than a third of groves in California and torched an estimated 2,261 to 3,637 sequoias, which are the largest trees by volume. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian) (Gary Kazanjian) Novemat 8:26 pm EST By BRIAN MELLEY APTOPIX Giant Sequoias Killed Assistant Fire Manager Leif Mathiesen, of the Sequoia & Kings Canyon Nation Park Fire Service, looks for an opening in the burned-out redwood tree from the Redwood Mountain Grove which was devastated by the KNP Complex fires earlier in the year in the KingsCanyon National Park, Calif., Friday, Nov.