Sequoia National Park is closed as wildfire danger threatens the area, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced in a recent release.
The KNP Complex Fire, which is comprised of the Paradise Fire and the Colony Fire, ignited Sept. 10 and burned 5,861 acres as of Sept. 14.
“There’s no imminent threat to Giant Forest but that is a potential,” Mark Ruggiero, fire information officer for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, told ABC News last week. "But, these trees were affected by the Castle Fire in 2020."
A task force has been created to determine the extent of the damage from the Castle Fire, according to a Kern Valley Sun report. Sequoia National Forest Supervisor Teresa Benson reportedly brought in the Burned Area Emergency Response Team to develop strategies to mitigate threats from the 2020 fire and to develop strategies to manage the consequences of this fire.
"Sequoia trees are a fire-adaptive tree,” Ruggiero told ABC. “It’s important to have fire to have sequoias thrive, but when we get such intense fires even the sequoias can’t stand up to them.”
According to the ABC report, both fires were projected to advance near the Giant Forest, including more than 2,000 giant sequoia trees and the General Sherman tree. The General Sherman tree is reportedly the largest tree in the world, by volume.
A temporary closure of the area and evacuation warnings will remain in effect as fires continue to threaten the area, the release states.
"In times of unparalleled threats to the lands we protect, we must take extraordinary steps, coming together as a larger community and united by our conservation goals. Everything we do is critical to sustaining the health, diversity and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations,” Benson told The Porterville Recorder.
The BLM Bakersfield office has cut public access to the 20,000 acres of land within the Case Mountain Recreation Management Area in the Three Rivers, California area, due to danger associated with the KNP Complex Fire.
