Wildfires sweeping across California are threatening the US state’s famed sequoia trees, with firefighters scrambling to protect the national treasures.
The so-called Rough Fire, the largest of more than a dozen burning across northern and central California, has edged closer to the giant trees in recent days with firefighters scrambling to protect them.
“The fire has moved into a number of sequoia groves in King’s Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Forest and we are taking preventive measures to make sure nothing happens to them,” park spokesman Mike Theune told reporters.
Photo: AFP
Of particular concern is the General Grant tree, the second-largest sequoia in the world. It stands 81.7m tall.
Theune said firefighters are monitoring the tree round-the-clock, spraying water and clearing the area around Grant grove.
“We have some of the best firefighters in the world working on this fire in order to protect these national treasures,” he said.
Theune said crews had also installed a sprinkler system around the Boole Tree, the sixth-largest tree in the world.
Although the sequoias, which are a major attraction for tourists worldwide, need low-intensity fires to reproduce, extreme heat like that from the Rough Fire is too much for the giants to handle.
The Rough Fire has burned 56,251.3 hectares near Sequoia and King’s Canyon National Parks. More than 3,700 firefighters are battling the blaze, which is 40 percent contained, according to the US Forest Service.
Thousands of firefighters further north are also battling two fast-moving wildfires — the Valley Fire and the Butte Fire — that erupted over the weekend.
The blazes killed at least one person, forced the evacuation of more than 23,000 and destroyed more than 700 homes.
Of the two fires, the Valley Fire has been the most devastating and difficult to contain. Officials said 9,000 homes are still threatened in the area.
Middletown, a small hamlet north of San Francisco, was completely gutted by the flames that left an apocalyptic scene and shocked even seasoned firefighters with its speed and strength.
Residents trickled back to the town on Tuesday to check on their still smoldering homes. Officials said at least 400 homes and businesses had burned to the ground.
“Everyone in here could tell you a horror story you wouldn’t believe,” said Ashley Mayhew, manager at Hardester’s, a market in the heart of Middletown that stayed open during the inferno.
She said desperate residents had flooded the store over the weekend, buying everything from water, groceries, tools and other supplies.
“People ... were hosing down their houses to try to save them,” Mayhew told reporters.
Fire officials said there was reason for hope in battling the Butte Fire, and that some residents of the San Andreas area should even be allowed back to their homes.
However, although temperatures are expected to be much cooler this week than last, fire officials remain on alert due to hot conditions and landscape left bone dry by a four-year drought.
California Governor Jerry Brown, who has declared a state of emergency in the affected counties, on Monday said he did not see an end to the fire season in the months ahead, blaming climate change in part for the blazes.
“It is going to get worse because of the nature of climate change,” Brown told reporters.
John Wickstrom, engine captain with the US Forest Service, said crews were struggling to anticipate the path of the fires.
“With the conditions and the damage that’s already done, we could be out here for weeks,” he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in