YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, California (AP) – A wildfire threatening the largest giant redwood forest in Yosemite National Park doubled in size in one day, and firefighters were working on difficult terrain Sunday to protect iconic trees and a small mountain town.
Campers and residents near the fire were evacuated, but the rest of California’s vast park remained open, though heavy smoke darkened the panoramic views and created poor air quality. healthy.
“It’s really the most smoky we’ve seen today,” Nancy Phillipe, a spokeswoman for Yosemite fires, said Sunday. “Until this morning, the park hasn’t been in that unhealthy category, but here we are now.”
More than 500 mature redwoods were threatened at the famous Butterfly Grove, but there were no reports of serious damage to any named tree, including the 3,000-year-old Grizzly giant.
A sprinkler system installed in the grove kept the tree trunks moist and officials hoped that the constant spray of water along with the previous burns prescribed would be enough to keep the flames at bay, he said. Phillipe.
The cause of the Washburn fire is being investigated. It had grown to nearly 2.5 square miles (6.7 square kilometers) Sunday morning, with no containment.
Beyond the trees, the Wawona community, which is surrounded by parks, was under threat, with orders to march Friday night. In addition to the residents, about 600 to 700 campers who were staying at the Wawona camp in tents, huts and a historic hotel were ordered to leave.
Temperatures were expected to rise and reach 90 degrees lower in the next few days, but fire crews working on steep terrain did not struggle with strong winds, said Jeffrey Barlow, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford.
Giant sequoias, native to some 70 forests along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, were previously considered impermeable to flames, but have become increasingly vulnerable as forest fires feed. by the accumulation of undergrowth of a century of firefighting and drought aggravated by climate change has become more intense and destructive.
Phillipe, the park’s spokesman, said earlier that some of the massive logs had been wrapped in fire-resistant aluminum foil to protect themselves, but it was corrected on Sunday and said was not the case in the fire. However, crews have wrapped a historic cabin with the protective foil, he said.
Forest fires caused by lightning over the past two years have killed up to one-fifth of the estimated 75,000 large redwoods, which are the largest trees in volume and a major attraction for tourists in the state-sized national park. of Rhode Island.
There was no obvious natural spark for the fire that broke out Thursday next to the park’s Washburn Trail, Phillipe said. Visitors walking through the grove reopened in 2018 after a $ 40 million renovation that lasted three years.
A strong wind storm ravaged the forest more than a year ago and felled 15 giant redwoods, along with countless other trees.
The felled trees, along with a large number of pines killed by bark beetles, provided enough fuel for the flames.
Meanwhile, most evacuation orders were lifted Saturday in the foothills of the Sierra about 80 miles (128 kilometers) northwest of the Yosemite fire, where a fire broke out on July 4th. directly within the perimeter of the fire remained under evacuation orders, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
By 2022, more than 35,000 wildfires have burned about 4.7 million acres in the U.S., according to the National Interagency Fire Center, well above the average for both wildfires and acres burned.
____
This story has been corrected to correct inaccurate information from a park spokesman and reflect that tree trunks are not wrapped in protective paper.