Washburn fire near Mariposa Grove grows to 1,600 acres
Firefighters in Yosemite National Park's famed Mariposa Grove are bracing for hotter and drier weather this week as they battle a fire threatening the park's largest stand of ancient sequoias, as well as one of the oldest hotels in the American West.
The Washburn fire festered just south of the Merced River on Sunday, sparing for now the park's most well-known sequoias while continuing to threaten the hamlet of Wawona and its historic hotel. Yet even as hundreds of firefighters descended on one of the most popular areas in Yosemite, park officials and property owners remained on edge — fearing the worst for a piece of land that Abraham Lincoln first protected nearly 160 years ago.
As of Sunday morning, the fire had burned 1,591 acres and remained 0% contained — and fire crews warned that it could continue to grow.
Temperatures in Wawona are expected to top 90 degrees throughout the first half of the week, and relative humidity levels are expected to drop to as low as 15% to 25% during the daytime hours — potentially complicating a firefight that, until now, had benefited from more humid conditions.
Still, their saving grace could be relatively weak winds, said Colin McKellar, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
“It's going to get hotter and drier as we get into this coming week,” McKellar said. “Winds are generally going to be light and terrain-driven, so that's probably a good thing.”
On Sunday, the fire's impact began to ripple through the surrounding communities, with tour outfitters girding for cancellations and resort operators registering a hit to nearby cabin bookings as Highway 41 remained closed from the park's southern entrance to West Yosemite. Other entrances remained open as of Sunday.
“It all starts for the park service in Mariposa Grove, and it's very near and dear to everyone,” said Yuli Gotsev, a spokesperson for The Redwoods in Yosemite, a vacation home community just 1.5 miles from the blaze. “We're just cheering for the firefighters out there who are having the toughest of jobs right now.”
Meanwhile, smoke from the blaze choked Yosemite Valley — at times leaving Half Dome unrecognizable from the valley floor, Yosemite Conservancy webcams showed.
Some of that smoke could cause hazy skies across much of Northern California. An air quality advisory was issued for Monday by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, as forecasters predicted smoke from the blaze would drift west toward the coast.
The cause of the blaze, which sparked Thursday near the grove's Washburn Trail, remains under investigation.
The fire appears to have burned to the west and north of the vast majority of the grove's Grizzly Giant Loop and its Guardians of the Grove loop — popular hiking trails that pass by trees that stretch 285 feet tall and sprouted during the time of Socrates.
On Saturday, firefighters doused some of the most well-known sequoias with sprinklers — among them the popular Grizzly Giant, a 2,700-year-old sequoia that famously sheltered Theodore Roosevelt during one of the late president's trips to Yosemite. Crews also wrapped the Galen Clark cabin — now a museum — in foil to protect it against any encroaching flames.
In a sign of firefighters' confidence, crews have yet to wrap any of the sequoias in that same fire-resistant foil, Yosemite National Park spokesman Scott Gediman said. He credited multiple prescribed burns from 2016 to 2018 for helping to keep the flames from impacting the roughly 500 giant sequoias in the area.
“With the prescribed burns, with the treatment we've done in the Mariposa Grove, we feel really good about that — it's helping protect the trees,” Gediman said. “It's paying off now.”
Complicating the firefight are countless trees downed in a devastating Mono wind event in January 2021, which toppled 15 giant sequoias with winds estimated at 100 mph. Only recently had park officials re-opened some facilities that the storm destroyed.
Much of their job is saving an area that recently underwent a $40 million restoration project in the grove.
Less certain is the fate of Wawona — a community of hundreds of cabins 1.5 miles from the fire line that boasts the Wawona Hotel, a National Historic Landmark. Consisting of a half-dozen buildings, the Victorian-modeled abode has faced fire before — burning down in the 1860s before being rebuilt by the Washburn brothers, said Miranda Fengel, curator for the Mariposa Museum and History Center.
About 700 people were evacuated Friday from the community, the nearby Wawona Campground and the many cabins in the area, Gediman said.
Kyle Van Leeuwen of Los Angeles was visiting his cabin northeast of the historic Wawona Hotel with his family on Thursday when the first puffs of smoke rose from the Mariposa Grove.
By Friday morning, Van Leeuwen saw smoke billowing up from a nearby ridge and a helicopter scooping up water from a swimming hole he likes to go to. He decided to pack up that afternoon, after he got a better view of the fire from a couple miles away while visiting the Pine Tree Market.
“I saw one of the big trees light up,” said Leeuwen, 44, who was with his wife and three daughters. “Saw it spark and catch like a little matchstick.”
At about 4 p.m. Friday, Leeuwen and his family fled the area — a drive that took eight hours, due to several road closures. On Sunday morning, he held out hope that his cabin would be spared.
“For now, fingers crossed,” he said.
Three days into the firefight, Wawona had turned into a ghost town filled only with firefighters and a few reluctant holdovers lending a hand.
Michael Henderson, owner of the Pine Trees Market down the road from Redwoods in Yosemite, spent the weekend helping feed the roughly 500 people sent to fight the blaze.
“My goal is to put calories into the bellies of the people who are going to save our homes,” he said, coughing midway through the interview because of the increasing smoke in the air. “I got everything I need,” Henderson said. “I can be out the door in 15 minutes.”
Just outside the park's entrance, outfitters began fearing the specter of an extended closure.
With the air clotted with smoke and Highway 41 closed, business at the Fish Camp General Store ground to a halt. Only one person visited the store on Sunday, said Nick Ubben, a manager.
“We need to make $700 bucks a day just to keep the lights on and the fridges going,” he said. “There's been a lot less business in the last couple days.”
The fires are becoming an “every year deal” that regularly disrupt the business, said David Gregory, owner of fishing and hiking company Yosemite Outfitters. The Washburn Fire continues that trend — raising the possibility of clients canceling tours this week.
“It is just part of how you operate these days in a changing climate,” he said.