Yosemite blaze was a ‘human-start fire,’ park superintendent says

OAKHURST – The Washburn Fire burning in Yosemite National Park’s southern edges was caused by a person, officials said.

“There was no lightning on that day, so it’s a human-start fire and it’s under investigation,” Park Superintendent Cicely Muldoon said at a community meeting Monday evening. “That’s all I can really say about that right now. We’re looking at that real, real hard.”

As of 8:15 p.m. Monday, the wildfire covered 2,720 acres and was 22% contained.

Evacuations remained in place for the Mariposa Grove, which is home to the park’s oldest grove of sequoias, as well as the community of Wawona and the Wawona Campground.

The fire is burning on the outskirts of the grove, but “overall it’s in a very good place,” said Matt Ahearn, an operations section chief with California Interagency Incident Management Team 13. Ahearn said hand lines and other measures were in place to protect the natural resource.

Muldoon noted that the grove of 500 or so trees was first protected by Abraham Lincoln in 1864, predating the creation of Yosemite National Park and the National Park Service.

“It’s really the root of the whole national park system — a very important place to us,” Muldoon said.

Crews were also standing guard in Wawona.

“Currently, the fire is not right up against the community,” Ahearn told concerned residents. “We have crews and fire engines going through the community assessing structures, looking for areas that need to be cleaned up and putting hose lines where appropriate.”

The fire was not moving quickly, but it was “producing extreme heat,” Ahearn said.

Officials also sought to reassure residents they were committed to fully suppressing the blaze.

“We’re not just sitting back and watching this thing,” said Bass Lake District Ranger Jennifer Christie. “We’re in there and … we’ve got things under control so far.”

“We’re putting this one out,” added Josh Boehm, an incident commander with Team 13.

Boehm said his Southern California-based Type 2 Incident Management Team was summoned to the fire Thursday night and had taken command by 7 a.m. Saturday.

“We’re already showing 22% containment,” he said. “We’ve done a tremendous amount of work in that short amount of time.”

Nearly 700 personnel are “attacking (the fire) in every way possible,” according to Muldoon.

“The only benefit of having this fire so early in the season is there aren’t a lot of other fires going on, so there are a lot of resources available,” she said. “That’s why you’re seeing so many aircraft overhead now and so any trucks rolling through your community.”

The rest of Yosemite remains open, but many visitors have opted to cut their trips short, including Madison Swaley. She drove out from Utah with friends to spend four days camping and hiking in the park.

“When we got into the park it ended up being a lot smokier that we’d thought,” the 23-year-old said. She now plans to depart Tuesday. “You can feel it in your lungs.”

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