Ponderosa, Tulare County -- It stands a silent sentinel, staring out over the ages, and over yet another sea of fire.
Its branches stretching hundreds of feet into the sky and its roots gripping a 30-foot-wide circle, the giant sequoia at the base of the Trail of 100 Giants near this town in the Sequoia National Forest has seen everything in its 2,000 years, from the arrival of the Yaudanchi tribe of Yokut Native Americans to a photo op with President Bill Clinton.
On Wednesday, it stared out over a bowl of smoky ruin left by a 55,000-acre fire raging in four directions. The fire was still growing, three days after a Bakersfield woman allegedly touched it off with a campfire that got away from her.
"There was intense burning all day," said Pam Stieler, spokeswoman for the National Forest Service. "The rate of spread is significant."
About 1,550 firefighters were on the lines. Officials said they had contained only 5 percent of the blaze and had no idea when they would make more substantial progress.
But as the sequoia stood there, a few scant miles from the command post, the engines and the stubble-faced firefighters, the great tree seemed to be thinking: No problem.
To be sure, the tree and others like it in a dozen other groves in the fire's potential path are not out of danger. So far, the fire has spared the Trail of 100 Giants, although it threatens other giant groves. The spread of the fire is so erratic, and the winds so capricious, that officials say they cannot predict which way the flames will head next.
SEQUOIAS ARE ON THEIR OWN
But the same officials say they are preparing no dangerous rescue missions should a sequoia be singed. After all, this is an organism so fiercely committed to survival that its very sap is a fire retardant, and its cones actually require fire to scatter their tiny seeds.
"We're not going to put anyone in harm's way to protect the sequoias," said fire information officer Danny Randall. "They've survived fires before."
"Fires have run through here for thousands of years, and the trees are still there," said fire information officer Sue Exline. Other botanists said that only an extremely hot and persistent fire could end the trees' long lives.
Indeed, the great tree at the start of the Trail of 100 Giants -- the same tree Clinton used as a backdrop when he declared the sequoias part of the new Giant Sequoia National Monument in 2000 -- is supported by a base left hollow and black by past conflagration.
These are old scars, as can be seen by the graffiti carved into the blackened wood. The burns predate "Joey and Angela," who visited in 1975. They were there to greet "R.C.U.," who came in 1966. They were even old when "Hauptman" paid a visit in 1932.
The tree itself survived, and fire officials say it will probably survive the blaze started Sunday by an open campfire that devastated a forest lodge, forced hundreds of nearby hamlet dwellers to flee and cast a pall of smoke over dozens of miles.
On Wednesday, authorities said they had tracked down the 45-year-old woman who had told a storekeeper that her campfire had blown out of control.
The woman, who was not identified, was arrested at her Bakersfield home, 50 miles southwest of the Road's End lodge and campground where her luncheon of hot dogs allegedly touched off the fire. Fire permits have been required in the area, and authorities said the woman didn't have one.
On Wednesday, the lodge's mishmash of cabins, open campsites, campers and vehicles of all kinds showed the signs of the fire's early stages. One bus, located just feet from the remains of an open campfire, was reduced to an ashy skeleton. Not far away, a refrigerator had exploded, spilling miraculously unopened cans of soda onto the ashy ground.
At the same time, officials said, the real culprit for the fire's rapid spread was the dead wood and scrub brush that built up over decades as a result of putting out even naturally caused fires as soon as they began. That now-unfashionable strategy is being revised in a forest maintenance plan for the national monument, drafted after Clinton's visit but still unfinished.
"There is no question the forests need to be thinned to protect the giant sequoias," Exline said. "Unfortunately, 100 years of fire suppression has caused a fuel buildup that created these . . . (destructive) fires."
Already, fire officials say, forest service managers cut back and carefully burn 6,000 to 8,000 of the Sequoia National Forest's 1.2 million mostly inaccessible acres each year, a number they soon hope to double.
CONSUMMATE SURVIVORS
Although it was too soon to say whether the giant trees would be spared this time, Exline said old-growth sequoias have withstood countless fires over the ages.
"They are 2,000 years old; they've survived," she said. "They have adapted over time to having to have fire to maintain the reproductive cycle."
The area around the Trail of 100 Giants was subjected to controlled burns several times in the past few years. Combined with a recent blaze that charred about 80,000 acres to the north, those measures should help protect the trail's oldest residents, officials said.
Local residents and tourists hope so. In tiny Ponderosa, a group of retirees' homes and wealthy city-dwellers' summer cottages lies only a few miles from the fire line.
On Wednesday, a cluster of holdout business owners gathered at the combination lodge-tavern-general store to compliment firefighters and celebrate the luck -- so far -- of the great trees.
The lofty majesties are a big reason why the few who live here do so, said Jim Wells, who owns the Cedar Slope restaurant and bar -- although the absence of traffic signals and gas stations is nice, too. There's also a practical consideration.
"If we turn into a black forest, our tourism is going to go down tremendously," Wells said. "I'm going to move."
But he added confidently, "This is a cleansing of the forest. The sequoia will survive."
GIANT SEQUOIAS
Giant sequoias grow only on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California. The groves are scattered over a narrow 260-mile belt, ranging in elevation from 5,000 to 7,500 feet.Physical features:
Giant sequoias are slightly shorter than the coastal redwoods, more massive and considered to be the largest tree in the world in terms of volume. Outstanding trees are 2,500 to 3,000 years old, measure up to 35 feet in diameter and reach heights of 300 feet.
The largest giant sequoia and the most massive living organism on the planet is the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park. It stretches 275 feet high and has a diameter of 36.5 feet.
Sequoias typically do not die of old age: they usually die by toppling.
Trail of 100 Giants:
Located within the Long Meadow Giant Sequoia Grove, the second most southern grove where giant sequoias are found. The grove contains 125 giant sequoias over 10 feet in diameter. The grove encompasses 355 acres. The trees in the grove are believed to be between 500 and 1,500 years old.
Fire:
The bark near the base of a sequoia may be 12 to 18 inches thick. This soft, fibrous bark is fire resistant and protects the growth layer from fire. Intense heat generated by the debris accumulated at the tree's base, along with the effect of repeated fires, can breach the bark. However, the tree's water-based sap also makes the tree more heat-tolerant.Sources: USDA Forest Service; Yosemite National Park; Associated Press, Encyclopaedia Britannica; National Park Service; USGS
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