Fire closer to park; containment gains
Firefighters finally made progress battling the Ferguson Fire roughly 10 days after it erupted near Yosemite National Park, though officials acknowledged the blaze has spread closer to the park.
While the fire grew by nearly 3,000 acres since Sunday — up to 36,102 acres total — crews using aircraft, bulldozers and hand tools managed to establish more lines around the conflagration, raising containment to 16 percent, the highest it’s been since the fire sparked to life on the night of July 13.
But the inferno grew rapidly over the weekend and is now within 2 miles of the park, said Rich Eagan, a Ferguson Fire
spokesman. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered in El Portal and Yosemite West, communities housing park employees and visitors.
Fire officials report that one structure may have been burned — the first consumed by the blaze — but that has not been confirmed. The number of structures threatened jumped from a couple hundred on Sunday to 3,494, because skies cleared enough to get more accurate aerial surveys, Eagan said.
Weather conditions could hamper firefighters this week, with temperatures in the area expected to rise to 105 degrees by Wednesday,
“This thing, unfortunately, is going to take us a while to control. It’s a beast,”Eagan said. “We could be here for a while.”
More than 3,300 firefighters from across the country are fighting the fire with 194 engines, 45 water tenders, 16 helicopters, 52 bulldozers and 16 hand crews.
A pair of DC-10 tanker planes also have been key to helping contain the fire, Eagan said. The planes dump fire retardant ahead of the flames, trying to make sure they don’t jump the line.
The fire continues to move northeast in the Stanislaus National Forest, north of Highway 140, which hasn’t burned in more than 100 years.
“Our concern is that the terrain is so rough, it is going to be hard to contain,” Eagan said. “The good news is that not many people, if any, live in that area, but there is a lot of thick, dry brush and heavy timber.”
Four firefighters have been injured combatting the blaze, and heavy equipment operator Braden Varney was killed after the bulldozer he was operating rolled down a ravine.
Yosemite remains open, but Highway 140 — one of the three main routes into the park — continues to be closed.
Smoke from the fire has poured into Yosemite Valley at times, obscuring the famous views but diminishing the crowds only slightly, according to Scott Gediman, park spokesman.