HWY 140 into the park was closed by the Oak fire. 14,000 acres and still uncontained.
https://kmph.com/news/local/oak-fire...cuation-orders
That fire is awfully close to the town of Mariposa!
HWY 140 into the park was closed by the Oak fire. 14,000 acres and still uncontained.
https://kmph.com/news/local/oak-fire...cuation-orders
That fire is awfully close to the town of Mariposa!
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
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.
Last edited by Drew Wiley; 24-Jul-2022 at 15:01.
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.
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
747 Supertanker:
https://fireaviation.com/2022/05/04/...-of-this-year/
Fire up in Southern Yosemite is not good at all... and CA fire season has not yet "officially" begun..
Bernice
Originally Posted by John Kasaian
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.
747ER max take off weight: 910,000 pounds.
https://www.boeing.com/commercial/ae...o_21/747ER.pdf
AVRO RJ85 AT, max take off weight: 97,000 pounds.
https://conair.ca/conair_fleet/rj85at
Bernice
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.
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.
This morning they announced 26% containment with the Oak Fire
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
Here's an interesting take on the smoke plume from the Oak fire. That first lake in Hensley.
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
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