A forest fire out of control for three days in Yosemite Park, California (western United States), now threatens its giant sequoias, the natural park announced on Sunday July 10.
The fire, which reached Mariposa Grove (“The Butterfly Grove“), the most popular sector of the park because it contains hundreds of sequoias among the largest in the world, “currently covers 644 hectares and nothing stops it“said the park, noting that 360 firefighters were mobilized. One of the teams prepares the “Grizzly Giant– the most famous and spectacular giant sequoia in the park – as it approaches the flames by continuously watering it. “At 209 feet (64 m), it is the second tallest in Yosemite“, specifies the park, which disseminates the measures taken to protect it on social networks.
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Giant Sequoias are some of the most fire resistant trees and have been able to survive for thousands of years. But extreme drought and forest fires that now last much longer can damage them. This is how 10,000 of them – about 14% of the total number of sequoias in the world – perished in 2020 in a large fire. “Given the burning conditions and the wildfires that are being talked about, we expect to have another very tough four, five or six months“, had warned in June one of the managers of the firefighters of California, Brian Fennessy. This area of Yosemite Park has been largely redeveloped and reopened in 2018.
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