Brian MelleyThe Associated PressLightning-sparked wildfires killed thousands of giant sequoias this year, adding to a staggering two-year death toll that accounts for up to nearly a fifth of Earth’s largest trees, officials said Friday, Nov. 19.Fires in Sequoia National Park and the surrounding national forest that also bears the trees’ name tore through more than a third of groves in California and torched an estimated 2,261 and 3,637 sequoias, which are the largest trees by volume. Fires in the same area last year killed an unprecedented 7,500 to 10,400 of the 75,000 trees that are only native in about 70 groves scattered along the western side of the Sierra Nevada range.Intense fires that burned hot enough and high enough to kill so many giant sequoias – trees once
