KNP Complex Fire burns giant sequoias in Redwood Mountain Grove. It’s shocking and sad
Redwood Mountain Grove, which sits practically in Fresno’s backyard, is often described as the world’s largest intact grove of giant sequoias.
The word “intact” implies giant sequoias that our shortsighted forebears didn’t chop down for reasons of vanity, curiosity or simply to build long-lasting fence posts.
Time to readjust our thinking — in a whole bunch of respects.
After the KNP Complex Fire continued its northerly push into Kings Canyon National Park early last week, Redwood Mountain Grove is no longer intact. Flames burned through 82 percent of the sprawling 2,670-acre area, according to satellite imagery collected by the fire’s incident management team. ABC-30’s weather camera also detected a large pyrocumulus cloud in the area Monday evening.
Heat maps and photos don’t automatically mean the 5,000-plus sequoia trees with trunks larger than 4 feet in diameter growing in Redwood Mountain Grove met a similar fate to the many thousands killed in last year’s Castle Fire.
Christy Brigham, chief scientist at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, isn’t certain of the damage and won’t get an accurate assessment for at least a week, which is when conditions will be safe for on-the-ground inspections by park biologists.
Still, Brigham is hopeful that operations undertaken in the last week helped prevent the worst-case scenario. Field crews worked several days to clear fuels away from more than 100 large sequoias believed to be the most vulnerable. However, a backfiring operation designed to bring in low-intensity ground fire — a countermeasure to high-intensity wildfire spreading through tree canopies — did not prove as successful.
Redwood Mountain Grove also has a long history of prescribed burns dating to the 1960s. Portions of the grove have seen six different prescribed fires since 2000.
Perhaps the most encouraging sign is a photo of the KNP Complex Fire burning across the Generals Highway in that area showing massive giant sequoias with their large, green “broccoli tops” intact.
“Some large monarchs at that time did not get fire into the canopies,” Brigham said in an email.
Treasured secret for hikers
Never heard of Redwood Mountain Grove or Redwood Canyon as it is sometimes called? You’re probably not alone.
Compared to more-famous Sequoia and Kings Canyon attractions such as Giant Forest, Moro Rock and Grant Grove, Redwood Mountain Grove receives relatively few visitors. The 2-mile spur road off the Generals Highway to the main trailhead isn’t even paved.
While the federal government began protecting giant sequoias in 1890 with the creation of Sequoia National Park and General Grant National Monument, Redwood Mountain Grove remained in private hands until 1940 when Congress greatly expanded General Grant National Monument and renamed it Kings Canyon National Park.
Eight decades later, despite an easy drive up Highway 180 from the Fresno area (75 minutes from my house in Clovis), Redwood Mountain Grove remains something of a treasured secret for hikers and tree admirers.
That’s why, as opposed to the international attention focused on Giant Forest when flames threatened the General Sherman Tree, the KNP Complex Fire burned through with little fuss.
Redwood Mountain Grove is a special place, nonetheless. Full of giant sequoias, gurgling creeks and, in the spring, blooming dogwoods. (Beneath the ground and even less explored is California’s longest cavern: the 17-mile Lilburn Cave.) Whenever someone asks me for a Sierra hike recommendation with terrific scenery, few crowds and not too much driving, that’s where I send them.
Hope I still can.
It’s almost unbearable to think what Redwood Mountain Grove will be like when the flames are extinguished — and for the next several years until the forest recovers.
‘It’s shocking’
The feeling is a combination of sadness and shock. Sadness over what’s transpiring in our local mountains and to these beloved trees. And shock that the climate change-impacted future many of us long feared is taking place in the present.
“It’s shocking to me this could happen in front of my eyes,” said Savannah Boiano, executive director of the Sequoia Parks Conservancy. The Three Rivers-based nonprofit has established a KNP Complex Fire Recovery Fund to help rebuild trails and restore groves, meadows and wildlife habitat.
“That this new era would be happening right now, and not 50 years from now or 100 years from now, is shocking.”
Monarch giant sequoias are more than 2,000 years old and have survived dozens of forest fires, which are necessary for the species to reproduce. Standing in their massive presence, it’s easy to assume a sense of comfortable permanence. That no matter what happens, they’ll be in this spot forever.
Oh, how naive that sounds now. Scientists believe between 7,500 and 10,600 mature giant sequoias perished in last year’s Castle Fire, and the combination of the KNP and Windy Fires will add hundreds (and potentially thousands) to that total.
It’s painful even to contemplate.
Which brings us back to those late 19th and early 20th century pioneers that logged thousands of giant sequoias for reasons that don’t make sense today. Perhaps we should stop regarding them with scorn and derision.
They chopped down giant sequoias. We allowed them to die in new normal mega-fires. Which is worse?
