General Sherman

Subject – Environment

Context – General Sherman: world’s largest tree threatened by California wildfires

Concept –

Two wildfires in California – one called the Colony fire and the other called Paradise – are burning through the Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada that is home to some of the largest trees in the world.
Among these trees is the world’s largest tree popularly known as General Sherman, which firefighters are now trying to protect from the blaze. While these sequoia trees are fairly fire-resistant, the “extraordinary intensity” of some of the wildfires can be overwhelming for the trees.
The General Sherman tree is the world’s largest in terms of volume and exists in the Giant Forest sequoia grove of the national park. As per recent estimates, General Sherman is about 2,200 years old.
It stands at a height of 275 feet (taller than the leaning tower of Pisa) and has a diameter of 36 feet at the base. Even 60 feet above the base, the tree has a diameter of 17.5 feet.
Significantly, the burned area represents a third of all sequoia grove area across the Sierra Nevada, the only area in the world where giant sequoias occur naturally,
Giant sequoia trees have existed in the Sequoia National Parkfor thousands of years and there are an estimated 2,000 such trees in the park. Firefighters are now trying to save the world’s largest tree and some other large trees in the area by wrapping fire-resistant aluminium blankets onto the bases of the trees.