GENERAL SHERMAN TREE

This year-round oasis in Central California offers a different kind of scenic experience.

The California highway connecting visitors to the world’s two largest sequoia trees will stay closed so crews can remove upwards of 10,000 trees weakened by wildfires, drought, disease or age.

In the wake of California wildfires, upwards of 10,000 trees weakened by fires, drought, disease or age must be removed, work that will keep a nearby highway closed to visitors who seek the world’s two largest sequoia trees. The highway is closed due to the KNP Complex blaze, which was 60% contained after burning 138 square miles (357 square kilometers) of forest, and will remain blocked off to visitors after the fire is out while saw crews cut down trees and trim branches. The highway connects Giant Forest, home to the General Sherman Tree, which is considered the world’s largest by volume, and Grant Grove, home to the General Grant Tree, the second-largest tree in the world.

General Sherman is still standing, but it’s not out of the figurative woods just yet, as it still towers in one of the county’s most famous stretch of woods.

It appeared that two groves — including one with 5,000 trees — were seared by high-intensity fire that can send up 100-foot flames capable of burning the canopies of the towering trees.

One fire official calls the possibility that the monarchs in Northern California's Sierra Nevada sustained that extent of damage "heartbreaking."

Officials are advising those in the Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley to limit their time outside as wildfire smoke and ash fills the air.

Evacuations were ordered Thursday in a Northern California community as a new wildfire spread, authorities said. The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office issued a mandatory evacuation order because of the Fawn Fire burning in the unincorporated Mountain Gate area north of the city of Redding at the far north end of the Central Valley. Residents were told to temporarily gather in a parking lot at Shasta College in Redding.

The ancient massive trees of Sequoia National Park’s famed Giant Forest are unscathed even though a wildfire has been burning near them in California’s Sierra Nevada for nearly two weeks.

Flames have already scorched a grouping of sequoias that mark the entrance to the groves, where the base of the world's largest tree has been wrapped in protective foil.

Flames have reached a grove of sequoia trees in California as firefighters battled to keep fire from driving further into another grove, where the base of the world’s largest tree has been wrapped in protective foil.

A shift in the weather accelerated the fires in the Sequoia National Park on Friday. The flames scorched a grouping of sequoias that mark the entrance to a grove of 2,000 sequoias.

A tree that’s larger than the Statue of Liberty from its base to the torch is trying to be shielded away from wildfires in California.

Martin Diky said he panicked as a huge wildfire started racing down a slope toward his wooden house near Lake Tahoe. The material that can withstand intensive heat for short periods resembles tin foil from the kitchen drawer but is modeled after the tent-like shelters that wildland firefighters use as a last resort to protect themselves when trapped by flames. Diky, who lives most of the time in the San Francisco Bay Area, bought $6,000 worth of wrapping from Firezat Inc. in San Diego, enough to cover his 1,400-square-foot (130-square-meter) second home on the edge of the small California community of Meyers.

Two lightning-sparked wildfires in California merged and made a run to the edge of a grove of ancient sequoias, driving away firefighters as they try to protect the world’s largest tree.

Crews also used fireproof wrapping to cover the Ash Mountain Entrance, the park's entrance sign that invites travelers into Sequoia National.

The aluminum around the General Sherman Tree is fire-resistant and part of a gallant effort to protect the sequoias in California's rugged Sierra Nevada from threatening wildfires.

Firefighters have wrapped the base of the world’s largest tree in a fire-resistant blanket as they try to save a famous grove of gigantic old-growth sequoias from wildfires burning in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.

Sequoia National Park has been shut down and its namesake gigantic trees could be in danger as forest fires burn in steep terrain across California’s Sierra Nevada.