Residents of one community could return soon

It’s been one week since the Washburn Fire was spotted burning inside Yosemite National Park.

And while the wildfire continues to grow and containment changes from daily — some times improving, other times shrinking — officials expressed optimism Thursday night that fire crews had a handle of the fire that had initially threatened giant sequoia trees in the Mariposa Grove.

And residents of one mountain community might be able to return home as soon as this weekend.

“We still have quite a bit of work to do,” Operations Section Chief Matt Ahearn said Thursday night. “Clearing up logs, spraying waters, cooling down the hot spots . ...

“The road system around Highway 41 up to the Studhorse trail is looking very (good). Heat has been mopped up. So there’s no hot embers within 100 feet of the road system. But we still need to go in a bit further. Need to get any trees that have heat sources in them that can fall toward the road, dead trees with fire in them that can still impact the road system.”

As of Thursday night, the Washburn Fire was at 4,375 acres with 27% containment. It’s most active in the Sierra National Forest.

While officials monitors the fire’s potential spread eastward, they added that Mariposa Grove, where the wildfire started, appeared safe.

Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon there were about 2,700 people visiting Mariposa Grove when the fire first broke out.

All were evacuated safely. “The corridor is looking much better,” said Ahearn, who added that the area still needed some cleaning up and mop up duty. “The grove itself is in a very good place.”

Officials projected that residents and property owners in the Wawona area, which is roughly seven miles northwest of Mariposa Grove, might be able to return to their homes as soon as Sunday.

More information on repopulation efforts was expected to be released Saturday.

But officials believe it would be some time before nonresidents and visitors would be allowed in the area.

“On the bright side, no power was lost,” Chief Ranger Kevin Killian said. “So there won’t be spoiled food.”

Incident Commander Josh Boehm did warn that though Wawona residents likely will be able to return Sunday, they should consider the impact of the amount of smoke still in the area before heading up.

“It’s smoky,” Boehm said. “Wind has been pushing it right over the community all day. I don’t want you all sitting in that. It’s bad enough that (the fire crews) have to.

“We’re going to get you back in your homes as quickly as possible — as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

Boehm added that when residents do return, they still might notice hazard trees and firefighters working near the roadway.

Large clouds of smoke was visible all the way from Fresno.

Incident meteorologist Matt Mehle said he is using weather balloons that can launch 70,000 to 80,000 feet to get a better gauge of the atmosphere above the fire.

“If the atmosphere it unstable, that’s going to allow the column to lift up even more,” Mehle said. “It’s like having a boiling pot of water. You take off the lid. And then it will just lift way up.”

One of the concerns about the cloud of smoke rising further is that it could form a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, which is a thunderstorm that would generate over the fire as what occurred during the 2020 Creek Fire.

There was no timetable given of what the Washburn Fire would be fully contained.