Yosemite wildfire update: Wawona residents return as Washburn Fire nears 5,000 acres
Residents evacuated from the community of Wawona inside Yosemite National Park were able to return to their homes Sunday as firefighters continued to make progress on the Washburn Fire that’s burned for about a week and a half.
The wildfire was reported at just over 4,900 acres on Monday morning, and containment was estimated at 50% as the fire continues to move slowly to the east in the Sierra National Forest, south of the Merced River’s south fork.
But containment lines on the southern and western edges of the wildfire’s perimeter, including those protecting Wawona at the northwestern end of the fire and along the northern and western edges of Mariposa Grove, “are holding very well,” said Matt Ahearn, deputy operations chief with the state’s Interagency Incident Management Team that is coordinating the efforts.
Another containment line along the ridge of Mount Raymond, at the southern edge of the fire, is also holding, Ahearn said Monday.
“The south fork of the Merced River is still showing heat” as indicated by aircraft flying over the wildfire with infrared cameras, Ahearn said. “We’ll continue to monitor that (with) a priority of keeping fire south of the river.”
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, and rangers are looking to the public for any information about what sparked the wildfire along the Mariposa Grove’s Washburn Trail on July 7. People in or near the Mariposa Grove can call or send a text message to the National Park Service’s investigative branch at 888-6563-0009, by email to nps_isb@nps.gov, or online at www.nps.gov/orgs/1563/submit-a-tip.htm.
Fire managers gave the green light for Wawona residents to begin returning to their homes Sunday morning, but a fire advisory remained in place. Residents were allowed to come and go, but only with escorts at various time slots between 8 am. and 8 p.m. each day.
Escorts were being required to and from Wawona between the community and the park’s south entrance from Highway 41 because of ongoing traffic from fire vehicles as well as aircraft activity overhead, creating the prospect of frequent road closures. Wawona remains closed to the general public.
Park employees and residents were to be allowed to resume using Wawona Road for commuting purposes starting on Monday, and employees who work in Wawona for concession contractors or the park were advised that they could return to work Monday morning with approval of their supervisors.
While the evacuation of Wawona has been lifted, the southern portion of the park, including the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia trees, remains closed as firefighting efforts continue.
The growth of the fire remains primarily at the northeastern end of the fire, south of the Merced River approaching Iron Creek in the Sierra National Forest.
In that area, specialized wildland fire crews known as “hotshots” have been deployed to check the fire’s spread. Two crews are at the northeastern corner of the fire near where Iron Creek and the Merced River’s south fork merge, trying to establish what Ahearn called an “anchor point around the hot corner” in the bottom of the Iron Creek drainage.
“We do have a scratch line, a shaky containment line,” Ahearn said. “But fire continues to roll out and spot over that, working its way down toward the bottom of Iron Creek.”
There, he added, fire crews are “dealing with heavy fuels, heavy downed trees and standing snags with fire in them, a very complex, difficult section.”
The National Interagency Fire Center, in its Monday update, noted that the fire area “contains large amounts of both live and dead trees, high mortality from the drought” and resulting assault of drought-weakened trees by bark beetles in 2015 and 2016, along with a significant number of dead trees that were blown down by heavy downslope winds in January 2021.
Fire crews in that area are not only being aided by drops of water and fire-retardant chemicals from helicopters and aircraft, but also by a pump system that was airlifted in to help firefighters secure the fire’s eastern perimeter.
Hotshot crews are also patrolling containment lines along the ridge of Raymond Mountain to guard against any new spot fires sparked by flying embers.
Almost 1,600 firefighters are assigned to the fire, and resources include 34 hand crews, 81 engines and 14 helicopters. The cost of the firefighting effort so far is estimated at $16.3 million.
At 4,911 acres, the Washburn Fire remains the second-largest wildfire in California so far this year, but at less than eight square miles it represents just a tiny proportion of Yosemite National Park’s 1,200 square miles and the 2,000 square miles of the adjacent Sierra National Forest.
Just as the southern area of Yosemite National Park has been closed to the public, a closure order remains in effect for parts of the Sierra National Forest. The rest of the national park, as well as the vast majority of the national forest, remain open, but officials warn that visitors may experience smoke from the Washburn fire.
This story was originally published July 18, 2022 at 11:15 AM.
