9 a.m. PDT September 28, 2021
Every week ABC News selects a Person of the Week. Last week they recognized the firefighters protecting the giant sequoias that are being threatened by the KNP Complex of fires in Sequoia National Park in California.
The last we heard they were successful, with none of the big trees being damaged or destroyed.
As nice as that is, there are hundreds of firefighters who have been in California for months, saving property and lives, and they deserve national recognition!
Great, now somebody from ABC can tell Tom McClintock that firefighters are NOT just unskilled labor.
From someone who has visited the General Sherman and General Grant redwoods over a dozen times since I was a youngster, and then later after graduating college and working on the Sequoia NF, the 3ft to 10ft foil wraps look ridiculous. I’m surprised NBC news could find anyone in uniform that could keep a straight face while thinking such wraps “will same the giants,” trees that have weathered hundreds of fires during their 2000-3000 year existence! These are trees with bark that is over a foot thick and many fire scars are seen that are hundreds of years old, and by the pictures shown, one can see that little to no brush is even near these trees, while needles cover the forest floor.
National Park’s limited budgeting could have been better spent thinning out younger forest species that crowd against the giants elesewhere in the Park. This was purely a “photo op” by the Park Service and NBC News!
We often caution people about criticizing firefighting tactics based on a photo seen from a couch hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Firefighters have been removing fuel from around the base of these trees for weeks and have been conducting burning operations around the trees.
And, yes, they have survived for centuries. But now California is in a drought, causing extremely low fuel moistures and fires to burn more intensely than normal. Giant sequoias are being killed by intense fires, such as those currently occurring in the Sierra Nevada.
From the National Park Service:
“…preliminary estimates suggest that the 2020 Castle Fire killed between 31% to 42% of large sequoias within the Castle Fire footprint, or 10% to 14% of all large sequoias across the tree’s natural range in the Sierra Nevada. This translates to an estimated loss of 7,500 to 10,600 large sequoias (those with trunk diameters of 4 feet or more).”
(https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/preliminary-estimates-of-sequoia-mortality-in-the-2020-castle-fire.htm)
I don’t know if wrapping the base is effective protection, but, according to park spokesperson, “The idea is to keep ground fire from getting at the tree where it is most likely to burn, which is close to the ground.”
I couldn’t tell you if wrapping the base effective or not either, but I do know that old, giant trees have many cavities, soft spots, and wounds at the base- especially when they’re heavily trafficked by tourists who have a tendency to do damage to these trees.
It seems plausible that you could lose a giant sequoia because an ember made it’s way into one of these common defects- and that would be an unfortunate way to lose a tree which most consider to to be a national treasure.
Bill, as one there the first 6 days of the KNP Complex, well said and spot on. Thank you
Maybe the foil looks ridiculous but I definitely wouldn’t want to risk letting the largest tree in the USA die on my watch. Risk avoidance – more folks in the WUI should also be proactive. It is crazy reading about houses burning down every year after their communities have been in low level evac warnings for weeks. Do something!
I guess structure protection groups should stop wrapping buildings too, right?