RED FIR: Firefighters battling to protect the world’s biggest tree from wildfires ravaging the parched United States said on Friday they are optimistic it can be saved.

Flames are creeping closer to the majestic General Sherman and other giant sequoias, as man-made climate change worsens California’s fearsome fire season.

“We have hundreds of firefighters there giving it their all, giving extra care,” Mark Garrett, communications officer for the region’s fire department, said of the operation in Sequoia National Park.

Crews are battling the spreading Paradise and Colony fires, which have so far consumed 11,400 acres of forest since they were sparked by lightning a week ago.

The blazes are threatening Giant Forest, a grove of around 2,000 sequoias that includes five of the largest trees on the planet — some up to 3,000 years old.

The biggest of them all, the General Sherman stands 275 feet tall. On Thursday, Gen­eral Sherman was wrapped in fire-proof blankets — aluminum foil inte­nded to protect its giant trunk from the worst of the flames.

By Friday, managers felt they had the upper hand, thanks in part to clearing of undergrowth and controlled burns that starve the fire of fuel. “I think the most challenging part is the terrain here,” said Garrett.

But “we haven’t seen explosive fire behavior; it really slowed down and gave us a chance to get ahead of it.” Around 600 personnel are involved in the fight.

“We have folks up in the Giant Forest protecting structures and preparing everything.

“The fact is that they’ve been prescribed burning for the past 25 or 30 years so it is really prepared.” Millions of acres of California’s forests have burned in this year’s ferocious fire season. Scientists say global warming, stoked by the unchecked use of fossil fuels is making the area ever-more vulnerable to bigger and more destructive wildfires.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2021