A team of elite firefighters took upon themselves the secret mission to rescue the priceless Wollemi Pines from Australia’s relentless bushfires. And they succeeded!
They have come up with a new plan to save the ancient and incredibly rare Wollemi pines that were threatened by fire. Only about 200 of the pines, also known as “dinosaur trees” are around today, clustered in a national park in New South Wales.
Wollemia nobilis wasn’t a rare sight 34 million to 65 million years ago, before a steady decline. Now, the trees are so rare that they were thought to be extinct until 1994, when a bushwalker David Noble discovered them . Only 200 of the trees exist in their natural environment — all within the canyons of Wollemi National Park, just 100 miles west of Sydney.
These trees were worth the effort because Wollemi Pines date to the time of the dinosaurs, and their footprint existed only in the fossil record of similar plants. Their exact location has long been kept secret to keep them safe, and it is never open to the public, in order to protect them from tourism-related damage and disease.
The mission to save them
When the devastating fires that raged parts of Australia came close to the Wollemi pines, firefighters from the parks and wildlife service and the New South Wales Rural Fire Service set a plan in order to save them from destruction.
The trees grow in a deep ravine surrounded by rocky cliffs at altitudes of between 670 and 780 meters, so this made the mission even more hard and dangerous.
Specialist National Parks and Wildlife Service firefighters were flown in by helicopter and dropped into the site by winchline. They then set up an irrigation system around the grove to keep the soil and trees moist.
Large air tankers assisted with loads of fire retardant strategically placed to create a barrier around the trees.
“If the fire did go through, we wanted it to be a cool burn as opposed to a hot burn to give them the best chance of survival,” Kean said.
A few trees had been charred by the flames, and two died. But the efforts had paid off. “Finally,” Kean said, “we were able to get in there and see that, thank goodness, the trees were saved.”
“These are the only living Wollemi pines found anywhere on the planet in their natural environment. These pines used to cover the whole of Australia. Now they’re only found in a very small and secret location in New South Wales.”
Source:
