Ruppert Landscape Appoints Kang President & COO
Jessica Schwartz
Saving The Sequoias From Raging Wildfires
Landscapers who do tree work know how important saving certain trees can be to property owners. Now imagine it’s your job to protect iconic national treasures—the giant sequoias in Sequoia National Park in California—as raging wildfire approaches the area. The KNP Complex fire, started by lightning strikes the night of September 9, continues to grow in the Park and currently covers 23,743 acres. Last Thursday, the fire reached a small area of the Giant Forest, in the area known as the Four Guardsmen, a towering group of trees that stand sentry on the road to the forest. However, authorities reported yesterday that the famous sequoias remained unharmed over the weekend. The trees had been thoroughly prepped with the removal of nearby vegetation and duff, decaying organic matter on the forest floor. Firemen also wrapped the bases of the massive trunks in a fire-resistant material, akin to an aluminum foil fabric. It’s the same material used to protect houses in fire events according to sources. Among the wrapped trees is the General Sherman tree, over 2,000 years old and the world’s largest tree at 275 feet tall and over 36 feet in diameter at the base. “We basically told the fire crews to treat all our special sequoias like they were buildings and wrap them all up, and rake all the litter away and roll away the heavy logs,” Christy Brigham, chief of resource management and science for the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, told CNN in a September 17 ...
Saving The Sequoias From Raging Wildfires
Landscapers who do tree work know how important saving certain trees can be to property owners. Now imagine it’s your job to protect iconic national treasures—the giant sequoias in Sequoia National Park in California—as raging wildfire approaches the area. The KNP Complex fire, started by lightning strikes the night of September 9, continues to grow in the Park and currently covers 23,743 acres. Last Thursday, the fire reached a small area of the Giant Forest, in the area known as the Four Guardsmen, a towering group of trees that stand sentry on the road to the forest. However, authorities reported yesterday that the famous sequoias remained unharmed over the weekend. The trees had been thoroughly prepped with the removal of nearby vegetation and duff, decaying organic matter on the forest floor. Firemen also wrapped the bases of the massive trunks in a fire-resistant material, akin to an aluminum foil fabric. It’s the same material used to protect houses in fire events according to sources. Among the wrapped trees is the General Sherman tree, over 2,000 years old and the world’s largest tree at 275 feet tall and over 36 feet in diameter at the base. “We basically told the fire crews to treat all our special sequoias like they were buildings and wrap them all up, and rake all the litter away and roll away the heavy logs,” Christy Brigham, chief of resource management and science for the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, told CNN in a September 17 ...
Australian Research Finds Turf Helps Bushfire Management
Pre-pandemic, the unprecedented 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season, which ran from June 2019 to May 2020, dominated global headlines. Colloquially known as the “Black Summer,” it had a devastating effect on lives, homes, and precious ecosystem. Here in the U.S., we battled our own raging fires in Oregon and California this past summer. Now, the scarred land, without the benefit of soil stabilizing vegetation, is vulnerable to mudslides. Amongst the bad news, however, is an interesting bit of good news that speaks directly to the role landscaping can play in helping to manage wildfires. Recent research out of Australia commissioned by Hort Innovation for Turf Australia, the industry body of Australia’s turf production growers, found that living turf and green life can play active role in bushfire management. While the study focused on common Australian grasses, one can’t help but wonder if common U.S. grasses might yield similar results. Turf Ignition Studies The study found that samples of three common grasses in Australian lawns—buffalo, couch, and kikuyu—are all highly resistant to ignition by embers. Further, even dead turf under severe moisture stress proved difficult to ignite in ignition experiments conducted at the CSIRO’s Pyrotron facility in Canberra. The study saw repeated attempts to light the three species of grass under typical bushfire seasonal conditions. Various wind speeds were tested, as were different levels of leaf-blade moisture. After 221 ignition attempts in the Pyrotron facility only 14% of the samples were able to sustain ignition—and all occurred in dead grass with ...
Australian Research Finds Turf Helps Bushfire Management
Pre-pandemic, the unprecedented 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season, which ran from June 2019 to May 2020, dominated global headlines. Colloquially known as the “Black Summer,” it had a devastating effect on lives, homes, and precious ecosystem. Here in the U.S., we battled our own raging fires in Oregon and California this past summer. Now, the scarred land, without the benefit of soil stabilizing vegetation, is vulnerable to mudslides. Amongst the bad news, however, is an interesting bit of good news that speaks directly to the role landscaping can play in helping to manage wildfires. Recent research out of Australia commissioned by Hort Innovation for Turf Australia, the industry body of Australia’s turf production growers, found that living turf and green life can play active role in bushfire management. While the study focused on common Australian grasses, one can’t help but wonder if common U.S. grasses might yield similar results. Turf Ignition Studies The study found that samples of three common grasses in Australian lawns—buffalo, couch, and kikuyu—are all highly resistant to ignition by embers. Further, even dead turf under severe moisture stress proved difficult to ignite in ignition experiments conducted at the CSIRO’s Pyrotron facility in Canberra. The study saw repeated attempts to light the three species of grass under typical bushfire seasonal conditions. Various wind speeds were tested, as were different levels of leaf-blade moisture. After 221 ignition attempts in the Pyrotron facility only 14% of the samples were able to sustain ignition—and all occurred in dead grass with ...
