Yosemite National Park, California
Sequoia Grove, a well-known Yosemite National Park, survived a wildfire that lasted more than a century, thanks to efforts to regularly burn the trees under the trees, a forest ecologist who visited the site said Tuesday.
For the past 50 years, small and deliberate fires have hit Mariposa Grove, which has put out fires and kept firefighters in a state of disarray, says Garrett Dickman. .
“We have been preparing for the Washington fire for decades,” said Mr. Dickman, who works at the park. “Of course he died as soon as he reached the bush.”
The blaze, which started near Grove on Thursday, burned 5 square miles on Tuesday, but 22 percent of it was contained, far from the largest Sekoya Grove in the park. Depending on the wind, the chances of returning to the bush are high.
The fire started around a street. Officials said it was not lightning and did not comment on whether it was accidental, intentional or reckless.
Hundreds of visitors and residents were evacuated from the nearby Wawana community on Friday, and the park’s groove and south entrance were closed. The rest of Yosemite is sometimes covered in heavy smoke, but it remains open.
Some Sequoia species were burned and burned up to 70 feet from the trunk, but Mr Dickman said he had examined the bush and did not think any trees would die. The Gallen Clark tree, named after the park’s first guardian, is one of the few trees that have been burned.
“It’s got a little warmer,” Mr Dickman said. But he also survived the paintings I saw.
The Sequoia are suitable for fire – and rely on it to survive. But more than a hundred fires have engulfed the forests with dense vegetation and fallen wood for a massive fire.
Ordered fires – most recently in the 2018 Grove – by imitating low strength by cleaning fallen branches, flammable needles, and small trees that can compete with light and water. The heat from the fire helps to open the cones to spread their seeds.
A.D. Since the deliberate arson in Sekoya since the 1960s, huge trees have been seen as necessary to save them. Up to 20% of what was once thought to be firefighters – in the Sierra Nevada region alone – has been killed by wildfires in the past five years.
The Monitor reported on ordered fires last May.
Wildfires are a growing scourge in the United States. The combination of prolonged drought and climate change in California and other Western states has exacerbated uncontrollable and sometimes fatal fires. But it is a problem in many other places. .. They say low-intensity and carefully managed fires can reduce regenerated forests and reduce oil emissions such as pine needles, dry grass, fallen trees, and dense fires.
Fighting with fire, however, is a dangerous task and is sometimes out of control.
In New Mexico, firefighters were working on Tuesday to turn the United States Forest Service into the largest wildfire in the state’s history.
In an afternoon meeting, the Santa Fe County Commission unanimously decided to conduct a comprehensive environmental assessment to reduce the risk of wildfires in the mountains bordering the capital by exploding federal officials.
Mariposa Grove, home to more than 500 mature giants, and the Yosemite Valley were protected by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864 – ten years before Yellowstone’s first national park in 1872 and decades before Yosemite was added to the system in 1890.
Mr. Dickman Grove said he had not seen a wildfire for more than 100 years. Over the past decade, many large fires have been reported but have stopped before reaching the bush.
The current fire is a little off by those standards and is not driven by the wind. But it is burning in a forest full of beetles and dense trees that have been killed by drought, and last year’s hurricane-laden wood fell more than two dozen seconds.
The previously scheduled fires in Grove gave firefighters the opportunity to prepare spraying to protect trees over 3,000 years old and more than 300 feet tall.
So far By 2022, more than 35,000 acres of wildfires have burned nearly 4.7 million acres in the United States, according to the National Agency Fire Center, with both wildfires and acres burning on average.
Smoke and ash exploded in Salt Lake City on Saturday as a result of a wildfire in Utah, rural Tuele County. On Monday night, the city of Yakub caught 19 percent of the fire and increased to 6.4 square miles, officials said.
Elsewhere in Utah, firefighters battled a 15.9-square-mile Halfway Hill fire at Filmore. The law enforcement arrested the four men described by the firefighters that had left the fire.
The Associated Press reports.