'It Has Come to This': Ancient Sequoias Wrapped in Foil as Wildfire Threatens

[douglas9]

A grove of ancient trees in Sequoia National Park remained Friday in the path of a California wildfire that has already triggered evacuations and other protective efforts including wrapping some of the iconic trees—including the planet's biggest—in protective foil covering.

The immediate threat is the KNP Complex fire. Spanning 9,365 acres, the complex includes the Paradise Fire and the Colony Fire, both sparked by lightning last week.

A Thursday update from the National Park Service indicated that crews were "removing fuel and applying structure wrap on some of the iconic monarch sequoias that characterize the most famous area of Sequoia National Park," adding that "the fire continues to grow in all directions."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/17/it-has-come-ancient-sequoias-wrapped-foil-wildfire-threatens

[OnlinePoker]

1. These fires were sparked by lightening.

Evacuate and try to save structures, but let the fire burn naturally.

[hatrack]

6. The Castle Fire in 2020 may have killed as many as 10,600 sequoias, about 14% of the population

Do try and keep up.

EDIT

At 40 feet in diameter, the tree easily meets the definition of a monarch, the name given to the largest sequoias. It's likely more than 1,500 years old. Still, that's as old as this tree will get. The trunk is pitch black, the char reaching almost all the way to the top. Not a single green branch is visible. "It's 100% dead," Bernal says. "There's no living foliage on it all."

The scorched carcasses of eight other giants surround this one in the Alder Creek grove. A fire science research assistant at UC Berkeley, Bernal is here with a team cataloguing the destruction. It's not easy to kill a giant sequoia. They can live more than 3,000 years and withstand repeated wildfires and droughts over the centuries.

Now, with humans changing both the climate and the landscape surrounding the trees, these giants face dangers they might not survive. Last year, the Castle Fire burned through the Sierra Nevada, fueled by hot, dry conditions and overgrown forests. Based on early estimates, as many as 10,600 large sequoias were killed — up to 14% of the entire population.

"This is unprecedented to see so many of these large old-growth trees dead, and I think it's a travesty," says Scott Stephens, fire scientist at UC Berkeley, as he surveys the damage. "This is pure disaster."

EDIT

https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/09/17/a-single-fire-killed-thousands-of-sequoias-scientists-are-racing-to-save-the-rest/

[Mickju]

7. +1

[Backseat Driver]

2. Damn! Hope against hope that works in lieu of

greater efforts for "just in time" containment this time around.

https://poets.org/poem/nothing-gold-can-stay

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost - 1874-1963

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Hope they get it right this time. Sequoias are one of those trees that...

requires fire to get the seeds out of the cones. It was only 20 or thirty years ago the Park Service found out there were so few seedlings because they kept putting out small fires.

A 3000 year old tree has been through hundreds of fires. If the fire is intense enough to burn through 1-2 feet of bark, though, that's another story.

[Goonch]

4. Hmmmm...

[keithbvadu2]

5. Get those right wingers out there raking the forest like Dotard recommends.

Get those right wingers out there raking the forest like Dotard recommends.