In a 15-month period between 2020 and 2021, an estimated 13 to 19 percent of the world’s redwood population was killed or fatally injured, according to a report by the National Park Service. The number is especially staggering, scientists say, given how few died in previous centuries.
“I’ve counted a lot of dead giant sequoias, and I don’t like it,” said Mr. Dickman, the forest ecologist, who counted the trees felled by the Windy fire last fall. At the end of the day, Mr. Dickman got into his car, rested his head on his steering wheel and sobbed.
“It’s like counting dead people,” he added. “It has let me down.”
On Tuesday morning, officials said Mariposa Grove’s mature giant sequoias had avoided “so far serious damage” from the fire, and were confident they could save them.
The cause of the Washburn fire was investigated, but it was most likely caused by humans, Yosemite National Park superintendent Cicely Muldoon, said at a community meeting on Monday evening.
“As you all know, there was no lightning that day,” said Mrs. Muldoon.
While the struggle to save the redwoods is a struggle against the relentless force of global warming, it is also an attempt to save a piece of ancient history and the cultural heritage of the West. The Mariposa Forest — first protected by Abraham Lincoln in 1864 – was “the root of the whole system of national parks,” noted Ms. Muldoon.
An image of the Grizzly Giant, taken in 1861 by Carleton Watkins, was one of the first photographs of Yosemite sent east, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Artand “helped confirm the idea that Yosemite was a relic of Eden in North America.”