A wildfire was burning near Mariposa Grove Sekoyas in Yosemite National Park / NPS.
Editor’s note This updates the acre under fire and provides additional background information about wildfires in the West.
Yosemite National Park has been evacuated not only by the infamous Giants Sekoias Mariposa Grove on Saturday, but also by the nearby Waona area. Weather conditions were not favorable when more than 200 firefighters tried to withstand a 703-acre Washburn fire, forecasting an increase in temperature and a decrease in humidity over the weekend.
The cause of the fire is unknown. The blaze, which was reported Thursday afternoon, appears to be a reflection of a new trend in the Western National Park system. Not only will the rainy season last longer, but it will start earlier this year, at least in New Mexico, where the U.S. Forest Service has ordered a wildfire.
In May, James Walman, a meteorologist at the National Interaction Fire Extinguisher in Boise, Idaho, Traveler Current trends indicate smoke winter. He added that it remains to be seen whether this will be the “new standard” for fires in the West.
“What’s new? We don’t know because everything is still changing,” he said. “How can we adapt to it? How do we think about all this? How do we tell people what’s going on? I think what we’re seeing is climate change.”
During last year’s fire, 7,125,643 acres were burned nationwide, leaving 10,122,336 acres burning by 2020. However, in northern California, some fires “have grown to a large extent, causing the total number of burned lands to exceed the area’s 10-year average,” according to the National Agency Fire Cache’s annual 2021 Fire Activity Summary.
One of the major fires last year was the KNP Complex, which spread over 90,000 hectares of land in Sekoia and King Canyon National Parks, consumed nearly 1 million hectares of land and burned down the park’s historic Las Vegas Volcano National Park from south to north. See Mount Harkness Fire.
Smoke from the Washington fire, as seen from the Wona Hotel / Linsay Stevenson
In Yosemite, a large amount of fallen wood and mixed wood forests were igniting the fire of Washington, a name given to a nearby walkway. Waona Road [Highway 41] Southwest of Yosemite, and Mariposa Grove closed until further notice. Reinforcement was being called and is expected to come in the coming days.
It was not clear how much of the fire was ignited by Gianti Sekoias Mariposa Grove, a group of more than 500 mature Sequoia. Calls to both the Public Information Bureau and the Yosemite Public Affairs Office were forwarded and did not return immediately on Saturday morning.
Giant Sequoia can grow up to 300 feet high, 35 feet in diameter and 100 feet in circumference. Grizzly Giant, one of the largest trees in Grove, is 209 feet tall and is estimated to be 1,800 years old. In the backyard, firefighters reportedly wrapped Sekoya trunks in a fire-retardant material.
It is no exaggeration to say that Sequoia Grove in California is being tested more by drought, insects, and wildfires than ever before. A.D. Extreme wildfires have increased since 2015, with more than 4.3 million hectares of wildfires, rural areas, and communities around California being burned in the 2020 season, more than ever before. Between 1910 and 2014, wildfires from 2510 to 2014 burned 25 percent of the Sequoia region, according to Christine Sive, a forest and fire ecologist, according to the state’s Cal Fire data. Then In 2015-2020, wildfires burned 65 percent of the region. By 2020 alone, it will cover half of the 16,000-acre, 1910-2014 hectare combined.
Last year, wildfires in Sekoya and King Canyon National Parks and neighboring Sekoya National Forest engulfed 3 to 5 percent of the world’s largest Sequoia, according to the National Park Service. In simple numbers, the loss falls between 2,261 and 3,637 mature sequoias, at least four feet in diameter.
