Southern Yosemite Highway 41 closed

[John Kasaian]

Wawona and Wawona Campground are being evacuated because of the fire near Mariposa Grove.
If you're heading to Yosemite this weekend, activate your Plan B.

[Drew Wiley]

That area was hit especially hard maybe three years ago, so this fire might run out of fuel. So far none of the Sequoia trees affected. But the footprint of smoke tends to be a lot bigger in area, and some of it will inevitably settle into Yos Valley as well as drift toward the high country. Sequoia Park has fared far worse after a survey of its big fire. They believe that 10% of the really big old trees (2000 to 3000 yrs old) were destroyed there.

[John Kasaian]

FWIW I just heard that HWY 41 is closed to through traffic at the Bass Lake turn off at Oakhurst.
They named this one the Washburn Fire.
Evacuees from Wawona are being routed into Yosemite Valley

[Drew Wiley]

Bass Lake scares the heck out of me. They've cleared trees around dwellings; but since it narrowly evaded a couple of huge fires, it's still a very dangerous tinder box of dead pines all around ripe for an explosive fire. This Washburn Fire is still quite a ways from there, and this morning reported at 700 acres; but we'll see. It is right around the big trees. But they were prepared for something like this, so expect full containment.

[Drew Wiley]

Over 1600 acres burned so far. Quite a bit of dead pine in there constituting the fuel. It's all on the uphill side of the highway. It's mainly the lower side that burned last time, except toward Glacier Pt. Lots of smoke, which is indicative of burning chaparral too, with all its creosote. And those dead and dying pines are especially pitchy. I can almost smell it just thinking about it.

[Vaughn]

I sure am glad I don't fight fires anymore...
Can hardly believe I use to do it (but not much).

[John Kasaian]

Fires at Mirror Lake and on Tioga Pass right now.
They think Tioga Pass was caused by lightening.

[John Kasaian]

The Washburn fire is approaching the 2015 burn scar, which is a good thing.
Rangers set a back fire at the South Gate.

[Drew Wiley]

We got a reverse air flow around midnight, and I briefly smelled a little smoke. Onshore flow again soon after, so nice blue sky today. But less ocean ventilated cities like San Jose have gotten a bit more smoke.
And a noxious an urban fire broke out again in a homeless encampment just under the freeway in Oakland, and blew up some propane tanks and burned some abandoned stolen vehicles, which generated lots of black smoke there. I don't know why the fire departments don't preemptively deal with that recurrent risk. They have the authority to do so. And it turned this afternoon's freeway commute into a nightmare - freeway totally shut down. Glad I'm retired and can avoid it. One of the fires in the delta caused by fireworks on the 4th is still smoldering. It's turning out to be another long season. Hard to plan where to go camping.

My nephew sent a couple shots of the Merced River canyon where he goes fishing in the evening. Hazy, but nowhere near as bad as Yosemite Valley.

[Drew Wiley]

Smoke spreading far and wide from this next round of fire, the Oak Fire, which is much more aggressive than the Washburn fire, and slightly to the south of that. In fact, the southern end of it is on the ridge directly above my nephew's place. Smoke must be horrible there. But the smoke is also spreading two counties to the south, completely over the top of Yosemite NP into Mono Basin, as far north as Tahoe, and sending plumes almost to Utah right now. Hwy 41 into Yosemite Valley itself has reopened; but what ya gonna see with all the smoke ???? Hard to make mtn travel plans under such dicey circumstances. And more fires are likely to break out. But they're real bad in at least six countries around the Mediterranean Sea right now too. Similar climates, and likewise hit hard by drought and excessive heat.

[John Kasaian]

HWY 140 into the park was closed by the Oak fire. 14,000 acres and still uncontained.
https://kmph.com/news/local/oak-fire-in-mariposa-county-issues-evacuation-orders

That fire is awfully close to the town of Mariposa!

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, it doubled in size in overnight. My nephew's place is now in the evac zone, everything above Hwy 49 really. That's a big meadow you've no doubt seen, John (Triangle Mdw below Chowchilla Mtn and just before Bootjack), and during the last big fires the crews actually staged their fire related helicopters and trucks there, but all the smoke might make that difficult now. Road access is good. But the biggest problem is that when PG&E went through there "cleaning up" susceptible pines around power lines, they subcontracted a lot of the work to temp labor who left brush piles around and never properly finished the job. It's taken the whole past year for my nephew's house and big office building to get repaired due to incorrectly felled trees by those utility crews; and now those buildings are right in the middle of an ash fall zone below the burning ridge above. But they're at least safe themselves, staying with my sister in Monterey - who narrowly missed a fire herself there, in eucalyptus groves, a few days ago, and lost power and communication for 3 days. Fires all over the place.

But cold and foggy here. And here I am typing this right beside a big 30X40 color print of a Spring roadside scene along Hwy 49 between Bootjack and Mariposa. That will all grow back fine. Dunno about any houses back in the brush. They're sure losing them uphill around Midpines.

[John Kasaian]

I find it interesting that they're using a lot of reconfigured jet airliners for aerial tankers. I haven't seen many of the old standby C-130s and S-2s this time around.
Flying a grossed out jet airliner low and slow in the mountains has got to considerably increase the cockpit pucker factor.

[Bernice Loui]

747 Supertanker:
https://fireaviation.com/2022/05/04/747-supertanker-expected-to-be-fire-ready-before-the-end-of-this-year/

Fire up in Southern Yosemite is not good at all... and CA fire season has not yet "officially" begun..


Bernice



I find it interesting that they're using a lot of reconfigured jet airliners for aerial tankers. I haven't seen many of the old standby C-130s and S-2s this time around.
Flying a grossed out jet airliner low and slow in the mountains has got to considerably increase the cockpit pucker factor.

[Mark Sampson]

I too wondered about using jetliners as air tankers. But the old veteran prop jobs are aging out, and some years ago the gov't outlawed the WW2 veteran aircraft after one crashed. People who know tell me that the firefighting jetliners are far from max weight and have lots of surplus power, so are safer that they seem to us ground-pounders. Certainly they were active (and effective) over Tucson when the Santa Catalinas were burning two years ago.
Forest fires like that are terrible news, wherever they are. I hope they can get this one under control soon.

[Bernice Loui]

747ER max take off weight: 910,000 pounds.
https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_21/747ER.pdf

AVRO RJ85 AT, max take off weight: 97,000 pounds.
https://conair.ca/conair_fleet/rj85at



Bernice





I too wondered about using jetliners as air tankers. But the old veteran prop jobs are aging out, and some years ago the gov't outlawed the WW2 veteran aircraft after one crashed. People who know tell me that the firefighting jetliners are far from max weight and have lots of surplus power, so are safer that they seem to us ground-pounders. Certainly they were active (and effective) over Tucson when the Santa Catalinas were burning two years ago.
Forest fires like that are terrible news, wherever they are. I hope they can get this one under control soon.

[Mark Sampson]

Three or four years ago I saw them testing the 747 tanker. It was noticeable overhead for its size (no commercial carriers fly 747s into Tucson), slow flight, and unusual flight patterns. Those are big airplanes! It wasn't until a year or so later that I found out what I'd seen.

[Drew Wiley]

My sister's house sure shook the other day when a vintage C41 or whatever flew right overhead dropping its load of retardant. That fire looks suspicious, deliberately caused, along with another nearby one, both now put out. So far, it looks like my nephew's place is safe below the big Mariposa-Yosemite fire across the State; but his wife probably lost her place of employment up at MidPines. He knew they'd have be be away for awhile, so took his surfboard along for the evacuation among other things. Might as well have your mind on something else than what you simply have no control over. He still has an official law office in Sacramento, so a Plan B if necessary.

Strange how not long ago we were chatting and speculating about hiker deaths at Hite Cove, and now the topic is a rapidly moving fire along ridges in the same area.

Note how two different highways are involved. Hwy 41 goes through Oakhurst and to the south entrance of Yosemite, then after quite a bit of winding distance drops into Yosemite Valley through the tunnel. It was closed due to the first fire, but is now reopened (if you can breathe the air!). Hwy 49 heads north from Oakhurst and takes the foothill route the full distance of the old Mother Lode gold country. At Mariposa you branch off 49 and head up to Yosemite along the Merced River and through El Portal accessing Yosemite from a west approach. But any entrance, even from over the top at Tioga Pass on the east, is going to be miserable with smoke at the present.

[John Kasaian]

This morning they announced 26% containment with the Oak Fire

[John Kasaian]

Here's an interesting take on the smoke plume from the Oak fire. That first lake in Hensley.

https://youtu.be/B749gk7ds0g

[Willie]

Which puts out more air pollution, the jets or the prop jobs?

[LabRat]

Which puts out more air pollution, the jets or the prop jobs?

The fire...

Steve K

[Drew Wiley]

The mixture of dead pine and chaparral pumps out a lot of burnt turpene and creosote, not just cellulose. I got a tiny whiff of it here on the coast one night, and am so sensitized to forest fire smoke that I instantly started sneezing. Back to clean air and drippy fog the past two days. Took the Norma out to Pt Reyes yesterday where it was even foggier. Needed a break from the house cat quarrels; but got to see a super-heavyweight bout between two bull elephant seals. When they act up you can hear them snorting at each other a mile away.

[Drew Wiley]

Now they're fighting the fire in that same steep gulch where the lost couple was found dead due to heat last year.

[Tin Can]

True

Bombs too


The fire...

Steve K