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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.
Between 2,200 and 3,600 adult sequoias were either killed by the fires or are expected to die amounting to 3% to 5% of the Earth's sequoia trees
Climate change . >> we're on a hike in the sierra nevada mountains, but this is a tour of sequoia destruction. >> i'm not happy about 2,000 to 3,000 more dead large sequoias. it's a big number to me. >> that's 3% to 5% of the remaining monarch sequoias in the world according to a preliminary report by the national park service, killed in the kmp complex fire that churned through sequoia and kings canyon national parks and the windy fire further south. that big number is on top of an even larger loss of mature sequoias last year in the castle fire, part of the sequoia
Complex, that wildfire eviscerating 10% to 14% of the world's giant sequoia population. brigham says this means in just the last two years, up to a fifth of mature sequoias, trees that have stood for at least 1,000 years, if not more, have been lost to wildfire. >> that's not sustainable. that is not getting wildfire and climate change resilient for us. >> reporter: it's a conflux of concerns these scientists never thought they would see. the threat made worse by another year of drought, leaving the sequoias dry and vulnerable. >> that means its water source has been there for over 2,000 years...
LOS ANGELES — 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