In an attempt to safeguard a famed grove of giant old-growth sequoias from wildfires burning in California's steep Sierra Nevada, firefighters wrapped the base of the world's most giant tree in a fire-resistant blanket.
According to fire spokesperson Rebecca Paterson, the huge General Sherman tree in Sequoia national park's big forest, as well as some other sequoias, the Giant Forest Museum, and other facilities, were wrapped as protection against the likelihood of solid flames.
For brief periods, the aluminum wrapping can tolerate intense heat. According to federal officials, the substance has been used to safeguard essential sites from flames in the US west for numerous years. Homes that were encased in protective sheeting near Lake Tahoe survived, while others close were destroyed.
On Thursday, the Colony fire, one of two now burning in Sequoia National Park, was projected to approach the Giant Forest, a forest of 2,000 sequoias. 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 1,487 cubic meters. It stands 84 meters tall and has a ground diameter of 31 meters.
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 vast trees in surviving by reducing the damage if flames reached them.
Paterson cited a "strong fire history of prescribed fire in that area" as the basis for confidence. “Hopefully, the Giant Forest will be unharmed as a result of this.”
Fire-adapted giant sequoias can help them survive by releasing seeds from their cones and creating clearings to grow young sequoias. However, fires of unprecedented severity, fueled by climate change, can wreak havoc on the forests. According to the National Park Service, the Castle fire last year killed between 7,500 and 10,600 giant sequoias, according to research.
Wildfires in the American west have become more challenging to put out due to 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 park was forced to evacuate this week due to the flames, and areas of Three Rivers beyond the main entrance were still evacuated on Thursday. Between the fire and the settlement, a bulldozer was cutting a line.
The fires are the most recent in a long summer of blazes that have charred nearly 9,195 square kilometers of California, damaging hundreds of houses.
