Fast moving Junction fire threatens Oakhurst South of YNP

[John Kasaian]

IIRC 41 going into Yosemite from the South is closed. The fire has jumped 41 and is threatening Bass Lake.
http://abc30.com/news/junction-fire-burning-near-oakhurst-is-now-at-1200-acres/269329/

[Drew Wiley]

Here we go again, but a bit behind schedule. I pretty much calculate that the chapparal matures and wants to burn at about forty year intervals. It's been fifty years since that whole area was leveled by the massive Deadwood Mtn fire, which completely destroyed Ahwahnee and Nipinawasee. My freshman year of high school, most of the kids on that side of the River were homeless due to that fire. Bass Lake is a dessicated mudhole most years, so should be very risky this summer. Once again, we learn nothing from history except we learn nothing from history. Hopefully they'll get a handle on this one before it too goes catastrophic.

[Jmarmck]

Wow, was that an L-1011 dropping chems? I had no idea those things could be flown in those conditions and in that manner.

edit: ahh my sons says DC-10. Still dive bombing with a passenger airliner.

[Drew Wiley]

Everybody able-bodied fought fires at one time. I can remember some friend or another showing up at the house all covered with pink borate to get washed up.

[Jmarmck]

Yes, I have fought my share of fires, mostly forest or grass. The biggest one was south of Long Valley, CA as an engineer, drafting out of ponds and water pools. My buddies defended the Whitmore house. We used the water in his pool. Fitting.

[Drew Wiley]

Before all the pro smoke jumpers and borate bombers, and before air quality rules, the whole community would get together, along with the Forest Service, and
annually do control burning around all the residences. But only about 5% as many people lived in the hills back then, and the ones that did were a lot more realistic
about fires. We kept three acres of green around the house, a fully metal roof, and a double tractor-width fire plowed fire break around the perimeter of the property, mowed everything down at least twenty times a season, and keep the outlying pasture well grazed - and still had close calls! Those big fires can rain
down ash like a volcano. All this suburbanization out into brush that nature has engineered to periodically burn, plus drought, just means more of the same. What
everyone seems to have forgotten is that the Indians routinely set fires when they moved up to the high country for summer. They did the for millennia. That way
the meadows and trails stayed open for hunting and moving about, and the effect of natural lightning fires was limited and beneficial.

[Drew Wiley]

The hwy has reopened (the S entrance to Yosemite). But it might be a smokey drive; or the situation could hypothetically reverse if they fail to contain the fire.