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Yosemite wildfire threatens millennia-old sequoia trees including "Grizzly Giant"

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A wildfire threatening some of the world's oldest giant sequoia trees in California's Yosemite National Park expanded five-fold on Saturday and Sunday as teams of National Park Service employees cleared away undergrowth and set up an elaborate sprinkler system around one of the park's most well-known attractions — a tree called the Grizzly Giant.

"We're trying to give it some, you know, preventive first aid, really, and make sure that when the fire, if the fire comes over here, that this tree is protected," Botanist Garrett Dickman said. "We really don't want to leave this one to chance because this really is such an iconic tree."

As of Sunday, the blaze had scorched nearly 1,600 acres of timber and brush at the southern end of the park, up from 250 acres on Friday, a day after fire was first reported by visitors on the Washburn Trail of the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias.

While flames stoked by extremely dry, hot conditions worsening on Sunday have burned largely unchecked, none of Yosemite's landmark sequoias, some of them over 3,000 years old and given names, has yet been lost.

Coming at the height of the summer tourist season, the park evacuated an estimate of 1,600 people and shut down the southern entrance which draws about 4 million visitors a year, according to park officials. The cause of the blaze remained under investigation, and no injuries have been reported, officials said.

For more info, please go to https://globalnews.ca/news/8981152/sequoias-yosemite-wildfire-washburn-fire/

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Category
U.S. & Canada
Tags
global news, wildfires, California wildfires
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