Thousands of Sequoias Must Be Chopped Down, Trees pose danger after California wildfires

[Demovictory9]

Thousands of Sequoias Must Be Chopped Down
Trees pose danger after California wildfires

Thousands of California's famed giant sequoias are doomed in the wake of devastating wildfires that have swept the Sierra Nevada. Per ABC News, upwards of 10,000 of the trees, which can reach 275 feet and live for 3,000 years or more, must be culled for safety reasons. The trees line Generals Highway--which cuts through Sequoia National Park, Giant Sequoia National Monument, and Kings Canyon National Park--and have been weakened not only by the fires but by drought and disease. Per an NPS press release, the "hazard trees" have a high probability to fail and the potential to strike people, cars, other structures, or create barriers to emergency response services.


In worse news for the rare giants, the release goes on to say that count does not include hazard trees in the backcountry, where mitigation planning is ongoing. As The Hill notes, the Kings Canyon National Parks Complex fire, which started Sept. 10, has left the highway closed for weeks. The NPS estimates the fire is 60 percent contained, having now burned 138 square miles. Earlier this month, officials revealed that "hundreds" of sequoias had been killed by the blaze, which was started by lightning on Sept. 9 has burned into 15 giant sequoia groves in the park. Multiple burned trees fell in Giant Forest—which is home to about 2,000 sequoias, including the General Sherman Tree, considered the world's largest by volume



https://www.newser.com/story/312535/10k-sequoia-trees-face-the-axe-after-wildfires.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_top

[tblue37]

1. That's heartbreaking.

[dalton99a]

2. A horrific loss.

[DURHAM D]

3. Kill the roads not the trees. nt

[Pantagruel]

4. Suspicious?

Who will own the very valuable lumber from the downed trees. Follow the money?

[pandr32]

5. I agree!

[kentuck]

6. That is terrible!

I love those beautiful giants!

[Mickju]

7. Remove the road, not the trees.

[Pobeka]

8. Take the trees, leave the road. We need *more* people exposed to wildlands, not less.

To the degree that the trees are unsafe, let them be culled.

I wish more and more people had close contact with the forests, because it makes it a real thing, not an abstraction. Real things can change voting habits much more than abstractions.

If more people see this, and the damage that climate change has done, it's going to affect their voting decisions to elect congress critters to work harder on climate change.

[electric_blue68]

9. 10,000 Sequoias doomed?!

I love 💖 trees!

Many of these aren't Giants, but they have/had the potential.
And they're beautiful any way.

[honest.abe]

10. This is absurd.

These tree are vastly more important that the road. Someone needs to stop this.

[Sgent]

12. I'm kinda with you

close the road for a few years and then re-evaluate. This is a national park, not the DOT.

[Retrograde]

13. Giant redwoods, not coast redwoods

They're in a different genus - Sequoiadendron giganteum - than the more familiar coast redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens. The latter can actually survive most fires, I don't know about the Sequoiadendrons, which are found wild only in the Sierras.

I don't understand the rush to cut them down: fires are not new to California, and a lot of the native plants have evolved to cope with it. Why not close the highway for a year or so to see whether they can make a comeback? So they may drop some branches: trees do that.