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Friday, 29 March 2024

Australia's dinosaur-era pines live on after bushfire rescue

Credit: Reuters - Viral Video
Duration: 01:41s 0 shares 1 views

Australia's dinosaur-era pines live on after bushfire rescue
Australia's dinosaur-era pines live on after bushfire rescue

Firefighters collaborate with park services to protect pines from dinosaur period

SHOWS: WOLLEMI NATIONAL PARK, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA (RECENT) (NSW NPWS - EDITORIAL USE ONLY/ NO RESALE/ MUST ON-SCREEN COURTESY NSW NPWS) 1.

FIREFIGHTING CREW ASSESSING AREA, SPRINKLER SPRAYING NEAR TREES 2.

FIREFIGHTING CREW CHECKING SPRAYING EQUIPMENT 3.

CREW SPRAYING THEIR SHOES 4.

VARIOUS OF CREW ASSESSING AREA, CHECKING TREES AND NOTING OBSERVATIONS 5.

HELICOPTER HOISTING CREW MEMBER UP ON HARNESS 6.

TIME-LAPSE VIDEO OF DESCENT FROM TOPS OF PREHISTORIC PINES (MUTE) 7.

TIME-LAPSE OF BUSHFIRES BURNING IN SURVEYED AREA (MUTE) STORY: Australia's Wollemi Pines survived the dinosaurs, and now firefighters have nursed them through the country's worst bushfires in generations to live another day.

The giant prehistoric trees were thought to be extinct until 1994, when authorities found 200 of them in a national park near the Blue Mountains north-west of Sydney.

Since kept secret to protect them from contamination, their location has been devastated during a bushfire season that has razed about 11 million hectares (27 million acres) across the country's southeast - an area roughly a third the size of Germany - since September.

As the fire approached, firefighters were winched in by helicopter to activate the irrigation systems while other aircraft dropped water along the flames' edge to minimize their impact.

(Production: Nur-Azna Sanusi, Pola Grzanka)

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