As wildfires ravage the United States, firefighters are hopeful of saving the world’s biggest tree. This comes as flames are closing in on General Sherman and other giant sequoias in wildfires resulting from man-made climate change threatening California.
“We have hundreds of firefighters there giving it their all, giving extra care,” Mark Garrett, communications officer for the region’s fire department, told AFP, about the operation in Sequoia National Park.
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Sparked by lightning a week ago, Paradise and Colony fires have consumed 11,400 acres of forest so far, as Crews battle against it. The flames have put Giant Forest in danger, threatening the grove of some 3000 years old sequoias, out of nearly 2000 in total.
The biggest, General Sherman, stands 83 meters tall. The tree was wrapped in aluminium foil to protect its trunk on Thursday.
“I think the most challenging part is the terrain here,” said Garrett.
But “we haven’t seen explosive fire behaviour; it really slowed down and gave us a chance to get ahead of it.”
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Nearly 600 firefighters are working round the clock to fight the fires.
“We have folks up in the Giant Forest protecting structures and preparing everything.
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“The fact is that they’ve been prescribed burning for the past 25 or 30 years so it is really prepared.”
California’s forests have been ravaged by fires and millions of acres have been destroyed this year because of what scientists claim to be global warming and unchecked use of fossil fuels.
The trees of the Giant Forest draw a massive tourist base from all over the world.
Although smaller fires do not harm the sequoias because of their thick barks and height of 100 feet above the ground, the larger and hotter, laying waste to the western United States, are extremely dangerous for those small sequoias.
