Incident commanders fighting the Washburn Fire in Yosemite National Park expressed confidence in their efforts Monday evening, but said fire crews were facing intense, extreme heat as they worked to protect Mariposa Grove.
At a community meeting in Oakhurst, Matt Ahern, deputy operations chief with the California Interagency Incident Management Team, described the fire as slow-moving, “just sitting there, billowing smoke,” and said firefighters were also working to keep the blaze from crossing Highway 41.
The Washburn Fire was reported to be 25% contained at one point Monday, before containment slipped back to 22% by 7 p.m.
The fire, fueled by heavy accumulations of large timber and shrubs, had burned 2,720 acres as night fell. A warm, dry night with low relative humidity was expected to do little to slow fire activity as the night progressed.
An evacuation order remained in effect for Wawona, and incident commanders said they could not tell anxious community leaders when they could expect to return to their homes.
But Ahern told those at the meeting that he was “feeling confident with the plan” to defeat the fire and was “excited” to protect Mariposa Grove.
At the meeting:
- Madera County Supervisor Tom Wheeler blamed a lawsuit that put a stop to a Yosemite logging plan for possibly contributing to the fire. Ecologist Chad Hanson, co-founder and director of the John Muir Project and an opponent of the logging plan, could not be reached to comment on Wheeler’s remarks.
- Cicely Muldoon, superintendent of Yosemite National Park, called Mariposa Grove “the root of the whole national park system.”
- Incident Commander Josh Boehm said his Southern California-based team got the first call to the Washburn Fire on Thursday night and was on the road by 5 a.m. Friday. “We’ve done a ton of work,” he said. “We have every available hot shot crew (on the fire). We want to get the fire out and get these firefighters back home.”
- Residents of Fish Camp were told that their community faced a “very low threat” from the Washburn Fire.
- Muldoon said there was no lightning the day of the fire, and that it appeared to be human-caused. The incident managers say the cause is under investigation.
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