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Wildfires torched up to a fifth of all giant sequoia trees | AP News

Source: Wildfires torched up to a fifth of all giant sequoia trees | AP New

Wildfires torched up to a fifth of all giant sequoia trees

By BRIAN MELLEYNovember 19, 2021

Assistant Fire Manager Leif Mathiesen, of the Sequoia & Kings Canyon Nation Park Fire Service, looks for an opening in the burned-out redwood tree from the Redwood Mountain Grove which was devastated by the KNP Complex fires earlier in the year in the KingsCanyon National Park, Calif., Friday, Nov. 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

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Assistant Fire Manager Leif Mathiesen, of the Sequoia & Kings Canyon Nation Park Fire Service, looks for an opening in the burned-out redwood tree from the Redwood Mountain Grove which was devastated by the KNP Complex fires earlier in the year in the KingsCanyon National Park, Calif., Friday, Nov. 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lightning-sparked wildfires killed thousands of giant sequoias this year, leading to a staggering two-year death toll that accounts for up to nearly a fifth of Earth’s largest trees, officials said Friday.

Fires in Sequoia National Park and surrounding Sequoia National Forest tore through more than a third of groves in California and torched an estimated 2,261 to 3,637 sequoias, which are the largest trees by volume.

Nearby wildfires last year killed an unprecedented 7,500 to 10,400 giant sequoias that are only native in about 70 groves scattered along the western side of the Sierra Nevada range. Losses now account for 13% to 19% of the 75,000 sequoias greater than 4 feet (1.2 meters) in diameter.

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