LOS ANGELES, Sept 10 (NNN-XINHUA) – The Garnet Fire, sparked by lightning in Aug, has rapidly expanded in the U.S. State of California’s rugged Sierra Nevada, growing dramatically in size and scale, according to authorities, yesterday.
The fire had scorched 54,925 acres (222.3 square kilometres) with containment at only 14 percent as of yesterday, according to the latest update from InciWeb, an interagency incident information system, run by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS).
Evacuation orders and warnings were issued across parts of the Sierra National Forest in Fresno County, though no structures have been reported lost. Fire crews are racing to defend McKinley Grove, a historic stand of about 200 ancient Giant Sequoia trees, some estimated to be 2,000 years old and towering over 70 metres high.
USFS videos released Monday showed, low-intensity flames creeping through McKinley Grove under thick smoke and an orange sky. Officials confirmed that none of the sequoias had been fully engulfed by Monday afternoon.
The nonprofit Save the Redwoods League said, firefighters had installed water lines, deployed sprinklers, and cleared fuels around individual trees to safeguard the grove.
Ben Blom, the league’s director and co-chair of the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition’s restoration working group, said that, McKinley Grove was recently ranked among the top five most vulnerable sequoia groves, as it has not experienced fire in nearly a century and has been left weakened by drought and dead trees, which now feed the Garnet Fire.
Giant Sequoias, or Sequoiadendron giganteum, found only on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, are the largest trees on Earth and ranked among the oldest living organisms.
Since 2015, nearly 20 percent of mature sequoias have been lost to increasingly intense wildfires, according to Save the Redwoods League.– NNN-XINHUA
