World News for Students of English

22-09-2021 07:00

Wildfires in California, US, shut down Sequoia National Park and threatened its ancient trees. The Colony Fire, one of two burning in the national park, has threatened to reach the famed Giant Forest.

Authorities increased the number of firefighters in the park, and they used prescribed fires to help protect the sequoias. Firefighters wrapped the bases of the world’s largest trees in fire-resistant aluminum blankets, as they tried to save a famous grove of gigantic old-growth sequoias from burning. Among the 2,400 sequoias is the largest tree on earth, General Sherman, at 83.82 meters high.

The sequoias are among the tallest trees in the world, and they can be thousands of years old. Fortunately, giant sequoias adapted to fire and that can help them thrive because the fire makes them release seeds from their cones and it clears other trees.

Difficult words: prescribed fire (a fire that is set intentionally to help reduce the strength of other wildfires), aluminum (a light silver-grey metal), thrive (to grow, develop, or live well).

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