Firefighters wrap world’s largest tree in protective blankets amid wildfires

Firefighters battle Windy Fire on the Trail of 100 Giants grove of Sequoia National Forest, Calif., on Sept. 19, 2021.
AP Photo/Noah Berger

A wildfire at the edges of Sequoia National Park is threatening a grove of the world’s largest and oldest trees, including General Sherman, the largest of the sequoias. To protect the ancient trees, wildland firefighters blanketed the base of the trees in a fire-resistant aluminum wrap that has also been used to protect homes, historic cabins and other structures.

Firefighters raced to protect the massive trees last week when they realized a change in the weather was driving the Sierra Nevada’s KNP Complex fire to merge into one, pushing into an area of the sequoia grove known as Giant Forest.

Four trees, the Four Guardsmen, stand sentinel at the entrance to the forest, which is also home to General Sherman.

Firefighters wrapped the bottom of the Four Guardsmen, General Sherman and other endangered giants in aluminum blankets to shield them from the worst of the flames. The Associated Press reported that the fire-resistant aluminum wrap is designed to protect from high heat for short periods of time, and that in the recent fire near Lake Tahoe, some wrapped homes survived while other nearby homes burned.

Cabin wrapped in heat-resistant aluminum for wildfires in Twin Bridges, Calif.
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

The National Park Service estimates that the General Sherman tree is 2,200 years old. At 275 feet tall and 36 feet in diameter at its base, General Sherman is the largest known tree in the world by volume — 52,508 cubic feet.

Sequoias are known for their historic resistance to fire, and they even rely on occasional fire to open their cones, release seeds and clear some space on the forest floor for a young sequoia to grow and thrive, according to the NPS.

But climate change has created a situation in which wildfires can burn hotter and longer than they used to, putting the once-resistant sequoias at risk.

Giant sequoias only grow in one place in the world, on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. Only 70 groves of the majestic trees remain, the Los Angeles Times reported, and last year’s Castle fire burned through parts of 20 of those groves with such high intensity that instead of heating the cones enough to release the seeds, the fire destroyed them.

World's largest tree General Sherman at Sequoia National Park in California
National Park Service

Thousands of the giants, some as old as the General Sherman tree, were killed in last year’s historic wildfires, AP reports.

Sequoia National Park remains closed. You can follow progress our brave firefighters are making on this and other wildfires at InciWeb. Here’s hoping for good weather for all.

News, Science & Nature, Travel

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Jenn Fields
Jenn Fields serves as Simplemost Media’s managing editor from Colorado, where she worked as a reporter and editor, on staff and as a freelancer, at newspapers and magazines. After earning her master’s from University of Missouri’s journalism school, Jenn worked in community journalism for 10 years, writing and editing for the Boulder Daily Camera and Denver Post. Over her 20-year career, she has covered a diverse range of topics, including travel, health and fitness, outdoor sports and culture, climate science, religion and plenty of other fascinating topics.

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