A 325-foot fir tree thought to be 450-500 years old started burning in Oregon over the weekend and was still on fire Tuesday. Firefighters are trying to save it.
The tree, known as the Doerner Fir or Brummitt Fir, started burning on a federal Bureau of Land Management area on Saturday. The fire started at the top of the tree and made its way down, the Coos Forest Protective Association that’s working to stop the fire said on social media.
Unable to stand directly under the massive tree due to the risk of falling, burning debris, firefighters used sprinklers at a distance and bucket drops from helicopters to douse the flames, leaving a burning area in the middle of the trunk.
The remaining burning area inside the tree was about 250 feet up on Monday and 280 feet up on Tuesday, the Coos firefighters said. Even with the remaining pocket of heat, the tree isn’t in immediate danger of burning down.
Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Megan Harper told The Associated Press that “the tree is so big, it’s got so much mass that it would take a while for it to burn all the way through the tree.”
The tree is one of the largest non-redwood trees in the world, Coos firefighters said, though the fire has trimmed it to an extent. Ms. Harper told AP that “we’ve lost about 50 feet of it, just from fire and pieces falling out.”
The Bureau of Land Management determined that lightning didn’t cause the fire, and an investigation into what caused it is ongoing.
