One of the largest and oldest trees in the world is on fire in Oregon

The Doerner tree, one of the highest coastal trees of Douglas-Fir in the world, is located in the remote forest of the mountains of the Oregon coast for at least 450 years. On Saturday August 16, officials received information that this historic giant was engulfed by flames.

The firefighters rushed to the scene, deploying drones, planes and teams from the hands to try to turn off the tree 325 feet high (99 meters high), 11.5 feet wide (3.5 meters wide), according to the Los Angeles Times. When the COOS County Forest Protective Association for the first time alerted the fire public on Sunday, August 17, it reported that the flames at the top of the tree extending to the trunk. During last week, the crews prevented the fire from spreading through the surrounding dense forest, but had trouble extinguishing it.

In an update of Thursday, August 21, Coos FPA said that he was working with arboreans to turn off the remaining parts of the trunk who held heat near the summit. “The firefighters will stay on the scene to make sure that the fire does not evade, and the lines of fire are in place around the tree, but no burning debris has fallen or threatened the line,” said the update.

On Tuesday August 19, about 50 feet (15 meters) from the top of the Doerner FIR had been lost, said the spokesperson for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Megan Harper, at the Associated Press. Although this can threaten its position as one of the largest fir trees in the world, the tree will probably survive the fire, Harper said at the time.

However, the clock turns to turn off the fire while time warms up for the weekend. COOS FPA said that additional drone flights will look for hot spots with infrared technology, and more resources – including a helicopter – will remain available to respond if the fire is going up. The BLM ground surrounding the FIR of Doerner will be closed to the public while the efforts to fight fires continue, according to the COOS FPA.

BLM officials are still investigating the cause of the fire and excluded lightning according to meteorological data. Forest fires are historically rare in the Oregon coast chain, occurring once every 200 to several hundred years in a given stand, according to Oregon Forest Resources Institute. The fact that this fire occurred – and it turned out to have affected one of the most famous trees in the state – is “a very unique situation,” Harper said in La Times.

“I think everyone would be super discouraged to learn that it might be caused by man,” she said.

Although the exact cause of the fire remains unknown, persistent drought conditions and summer temperatures above average may have helped the fire to spread along the massive Doerner Fir. While climate change exacerbates these conditions throughout the American West, the largest trees in the country are faced with an increasing threat. Many of these trees have survived centuries of environmental change, but global warming has an unprecedented challenge.