The largest known juniper tree in the United States is in the direct path of the Donnell Fire, a fierce blaze racing across the bone-dry vegetation of the Stanislaus National Forest north of Yosemite.
Standing more than 80 feet tall, the Bennett Juniper is only about a half-mile from the flames. The U.S. Forest Service said Monday that firefighters are building a break around the tree.
Thunderstorms and high winds are in the forecast for the Sierra crest Monday afternoon, and there’s concern flames may be blown toward the Bennett Juniper and Kennedy Meadows Resort.
A posting on the Kennedy Meadows Facebook page early Monday morning indicated firefighters had successfully built a line to protect the resort and the fire was calming down.
The fire was close to the Bennett Juniper but moving away from the tree as of 1 p.m. Monday, according to Anthony Castaños, the land stewardship manager for Save the Redwoods.
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“Calfire has been doing a great job prioritizing protection of the tree,” Castaños says. “But conditions can change. Until the fire is contained the risk remains.”
Even if the fire reaches the tree, Castaños is confident it wouldn’t fully burn to the ground since it’s surrounded by grassland.
“A lot of the vegetation in the immediate area is at a low level so if the fire did come through we don’t think it would suffer any serious damage,” he says. “It will burn quick but it won’t create a canopy fire.”
The tree is named after naturalist Clarence Bennett, who began his study of the western juniper in the early 1890s. The gnarled tree with a reddish trunk and branches is located on a nature preserve owned by Save the Redwoods in the Stanislaus National Forest.
While the Bennett’s definitive age has never been pinned down, scientists believe it’s thousands of years old.
A scientist named Waldo Glock took a core sample of the tree in the 1930s and computed its age to be 2,900 years old. Glock also found much of the tree’s core was rotten, making it impossible to nail down a precise age.
The tree’s longtime steward Ken Brunges had a chunk of the tree (dragged from the core by a marmot Carbon 14) tested in the 1990s. It revealed a “provable minimum age” of 2,000 years. Researchers at University of Arizona also tested some core samples dating 3,000 to 4,000 years old. Bennett guessed the tree was 6,000 years old.
it’s definitely in the thousands,” Castaños says. “I know some folks like to say 6,000 but that’s probably too hight. It’s in the range of 2,ooo to 4,000 years old.”
The Donnell Fire has chewed through more than 28,302 acres since it started on Aug. 1 on the east side of Donnell Lake. The blaze was 20 percent contained as of Monday morning.
The historic Dardanelle Resort is among the four dozen structures that have burned in the conflagration. More than 200 structures remain threatened.
The U.S. Forest Service closed a stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail from Highway 108 to Highway 4 due to the proximity of the Donnell Fire.
Highway 108 is closed at Eagle Meadow Road to Kennedy Meadows from the west and at the top of Sonora Pass on the east side, according to the Forest Service.