Hundreds of giant sequoia trees may have burned in California’s KNP, Windy wildfires

The two wildfires burning in California’s Sierra Nevada have now hit at least 15 giant sequoia groves and may have killed hundreds of the historic trees.

The KNP Complex Fire and Windy Fire have both been burning for nearly a month and have blazed through nearly 200,000 acres combined.

Early on fire crews put a priority on protecting the trees, including covering the most historically valuable — the General Sherman Tree, for example — with fiberglass and foil wrap for protection.

Sequoias are notoriously adapt at surviving wildfires, and while most of the groves didn’t see the kind of high-intensity fire that puts the trees at risk, an official with the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park told the Associated Press that two groves — one with 5,000 trees — were hit by fire that could have seen 100-foot flames, capable of burning the canopies of the towering trees.

Two burned trees fell in the Giant Forest, the parks’ head of resource management and science, Christy Brigham, told the AP.

The most notable trees did survive, she said, and the grove — home to the General Sherman Tree — appeared to be mostly intact.

To the south, fire crews battling the Windy Fire began to clear access into the sequoia groves to assess their condition. Early surveys showed the wildfire killed 44 sequoia trees, though Garrett Dickman, a botanist with Yosemite National Park, now puts the number at at least 74. In an interview with CNN, Dickman said he counted 29 sequoias in one grove that were “just incinerated.”

The world population of sequoia trees has already taken a huge hit because of wildfires.

As many as 10,600 mature giant sequoias — estimated at more than 10% of all the sequoias in the world — were killed last year in the Castle/SQF Complex Fire, which burned 174,178 acres in parts of Giant Sequoia National Monument, Sequoia National Park and Sequoia and Inyo national forests.

AP contributed to this story.

This story was originally published October 8, 2021 at 10:43 AM.