California: Firefighters cover sequoias with aluminum foil to prevent burns

Cover with refractory aluminum sheets firefighters in California huge sequoias to protect them from fires raging in the area and threatening some of the world’s oldest trees.

State officials are worried the fires could reach “Giant Forest, Where are some of the tallest trees in the world, in the next few hours. In this forest there are about 2,000 sequoias, among them an 83 meter tall tree, “General Sherman”, which is believed to be the tallest in the world and has age 2,300 to 2,700 years.

Firefighters placed aluminum foil around tree trunks yesterday, Thursday, to protect them from the Colony and Paradise fires, which are raging in the area.

In all, according to the Athens News Agency, about 2,000 firefighters have been mobilized in the Sequoia National Park area of ​​central California to set up fire zones and have already taken up positions and fire engines. “They are taking emergency measures to protect these trees,” Christie Braigham, a national park official, told Mercury News. “We want to make every effort to protect these 2,000- to 3,000-year-old trees,” he said.

Because sequoias “need” fires

Low-intensity fires usually do not affect the huge sequoias, which do not burn thanks to their very thick trunk and their very high branches, away from the flames. In fact, these trees need fires to reproduce: the heat helps their pine cones to burst resulting in a rain of tree seeds falling to the ground which has been cleared of vegetation due to the fire, which allows them to grow.

But these huge trees have not adapted to withstand the most intense fires that have broken out in recent years in California due to climate change.

Thousands of square kilometers of forest have already been burned this year in this state. The number and intensity of fires that break out in the state has intensified in recent years due to the drought, which has extended the season of fires.