Firefighters deployed air tankers, bulldozers and hand crews to battle a fast-moving wildfire just west of Yosemite National Park on Sunday that suddenly grew into one of the largest fires of the year, forcing thousands of evacuations.
Fueled by extreme heat and tinder-dry forests and underbrush, the Oak Fire that began on Friday closed within half a mile from the town of Mariposa Pines, population 1,400, but was still more than 10 miles from Yosemite, famed for its giant, ancient sequoia trees.
As of Sunday morning, the fire had consumed 14,281 acres , more than half the size of Paris, and was zero percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection .More than 3,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders and another 2,000 were under a fire advisory, meaning they could soon be ordered to leave, a Cal Fire spokesperson said.The Oak Fire burns near Darrah in Mariposa County, California, U.S. July 24, 2022.
"The fire is roughly about a half a mile away from Mariposa Pines at this time, but we have a good plan for today to protect the community of Mariposa Pines," Macomb said.Yosemite, about an hour's drive from Mariposa County, is home to some of the largest and oldest sequoia trees in the world. The trees had been threatened by another wildfire earlier this month, but firefighters managed to save them.
More than two decades of drought and rising temperatures have conspired to make California more vulnerable than ever to wildfires, with the two most devastating years on record coming in 2020 and 2021, when more than 6.8 million acres burned, an area greater than the size of Rwanda.Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, Calif.; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Leslie Adler
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