Firefighters battling blazes in California’s Sequoia National Park have wrapped aluminum blankets around some of the largest trees in the world in an effort to protect them from the state’s blistering fires.
Three uncontained wildfires are currently burning in the area, and officials issued evacuation orders for the park and surrounding communities. They expected one of the fires to reach the park’s groves of giant sequoia trees on Thursday, but a thick layer of smoke prevented it from spreading as much as they feared.
CHECK THIS OUT: Fire officials have covered the base of the Giant Sequoia General Sherman in an aluminized structure wrap to protect it from intense heat in case the KNP Complex Fire reaches it. @ABC30
?: Sequoia National Park pic.twitter.com/x0g4vfspoK— Jessica Harrington (@JessicaABC30) September 17, 2021
IMPLEMENT COMMONSENSE PROTECTIONS FROM WEATHER DISASTERS
General Sherman, a more than two-millennia-old sequoia that stands as the largest tree in the world by volume, was among the trees firefighters wrapped with fire-resistant blankets meant to help them withstand intense flames for a short time. Homes that were wrapped in the material during a fire near Lake Tahoe sustained significantly less damage than those nearby that were unprotected.
Last year, fires destroyed thousands of sequoia trees in the same region. Though the sequoia trees are adapted to surviving fires, the intensity of recent blazes due to drought and heat waves has broken down even their evolutionary advantages. However, the park has a 50-year history of conducting controlled blazes to remove the highly flammable undergrowth around the ancient trees.
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“Hopefully, the Giant Forest will emerge from this unscathed,” said a spokesperson for the fire department.
Representatives for the Cosumnes Fire Department did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
