Yosemite Forum

Merced Lake on Wednesday July 18

Vogelsang looking west at about sun set Thursday July 19

They're closing the Valley, Wawona, and hwy 41 (in addition to Glacier Point road already being closed).

That pretty much only leaves Tioga Road and Hetch Hetchy accessible.

Glad I went in early July. This fire seems much worse than other recent Yosemite fires (smoke wise and evacuations needed).

http://www.goldrushcam.com/sierrasuntim ... 4-18-1.jpg


26 percent contained, making a little progress hopefully.

They are making some progress, but it's still going to take quite a bit of time. I don't want to be flippant at all in dismissing the tremendous efforts so far, but they're coming into where the easier containment that's led to the gains is about done, and it's now coming to a point where reliance upon what they've established ahead of the perimeter is going to mean everything. Fire breaks, backburns, hoselines, roads, already recently burned areas...sheer manpower and assets, are all going to be critical. We can just hope that they all hold.

The other problems are going to be the temperatures and fuels. Way hot this week. Still no shortage of ground fuel to burn. What's also happening is that the high pressure system that's created an inversion layer (and largely responsible for all the smoke staying low) is collapsing. When there's smoke, which is really just particulates, it displaces the other fuel component a fire needs to burn, oxygen. High pressure goes away, inversion layer lifts, smoke lifts, more oxygen available, fire burns hotter and faster. The next few days are going to be important, and hard on firefighters. Wish them well, wait and see.

The National Forest site has a lot of excellent information about the Ferguson Fire, plus Mineral King is having it's own set of fire issues. The videos they post are very informative.

https://www.facebook.com/SierraNF/?hc_ref=ARRxe6x4-28kiUsSIAlIFSXddCgF5ZdHHa19Y5zGfXHG4VknFPXHXvnGc9BHpL_lZvw

Thanks for that link, Steve. I'll dovetail off that FB page and link to today's report:

https://www.facebook.com/SierraNF/video ... =2&theater

As can be seen from the report, they are almost 100% reliant on Hwy 41 to stop this on the eastern perimeter, and working the road hard to prepare it.

The good news/bad news is, they're tentatively anticipating full containment on August 15th.

Currently, the NPS is now planning to reopen the valley to visitors on August 3rd, not this Sunday, 07/29, as originally announced, but some services will still be limited.

I don't plan to post daily updates, but I think a lot of people might find today's briefing interesting and informative, not only in maybe helping them to plan their trips, but in helping them to understand some of the basics of what firefighters are up against and their strategies.

https://www.facebook.com/SierraNF/video ... =2&theater

Came back from CA a few days ago, switched from a long-planned Yosemite hike to one in SEKI (Rae Lakes Loop, great but pretty crowded, met several other Yosemite-refugee groups there!) and it was pretty clear except for the last 24hrs or so, when it was smoky enough that we couldn't see canyon walls only a quarter mile away. Driving back to SF area through the central valley it was variably smoky most of the way, sometimes visibility was only a couple miles.

Looking at the latest fire map it looks like much of the fire is now en-circled, with just a couple small areas where it could still break out further into the western edges of Yosemite:
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5927/

Minimal increase in burn area since yesterday, and a massive jump to 79% containment. The worst appears to be over.

Here's what's left to do as of this morning's update:

https://www.facebook.com/SierraNF/video ... =2&theater