Hundreds of firefighters were fighting an out-of-control wildfire in the prestigious park of Yosemite, California, on Monday July 11, whose flames threaten the emblematic giant sequoias. The blaze, which reached the Mariposa Grove area, the park’s most prized area because it contains hundreds of the world’s tallest redwoods, covers about 945 hectares, authorities said.
Fire “is not at all controlled”, told AFP Nancy Phillipe, a spokeswoman in charge of information on the fires in Yosemite. The weather doesn’t help. The weather is expected to remain warm and dry for the next few days. “We are doing everything we can to put it out, we are using air resources, tanker planes and helicopters” in addition to ground crews, added Nancy Phillip.
Some 545 firefighters are now battling the blaze, a number set to increase in the coming hours. This sector of the park has been largely redeveloped and reopened in 2018. Yosemite, popular with climbing fans for its cliffs, is one of the most famous large American parks in the world.
The small town of Wawona, which houses several hotels, has been under evacuation orders for several days. One of the teams prepares the “Grizzly Giant” (the most famous and spectacular giant sequoia in the park) for the approach of the flames by continuously watering it. These precautions, combined with voluntary fire outbreaks carried out to prepare the park, make it possible to ensurer “the best possible protection for the trees”, said Nancy Phillipe. Prescribed fires are intended to clear the undergrowth by consuming brushwood and dead tree trunks that have fallen to the ground, all fuels that can fuel the intensity of forest fires.
Low-intensity fires are generally not enough to harm giant sequoias, which are naturally adapted to these disasters with their very thick bark. On the contrary, these sequoias need fires to reproduce: the heat of the flames makes the cones that have fallen to the ground burst like popcorn to release hundreds of seeds. These giants, which grow only in California, are however not adapted to the more intense fires which have tended to break out in recent years due to climate change.