Re: Fire in Little Yosemite Valley

Management of the Meadow Fire was assumed by the South Central Sierra Inter-agency Incident Management Team on Monday, September 8 at 6 PM. Firefighters have achieved 5% containment along the western perimeter, near Little Yosemite Valley. It is approximately 2,585 acres in size, although that may change today. Over 100 firefighters are on scene, including water dropping helicopters. The fire is within designated Wilderness and firefighters are implementing Minimum Impact Suppression Tactics (MIST).

There is an area Safety Closure in effect, by order of the Superintendent of Yosemite National Park and under the authority of Title 36, Code of Federal Regulations, Section 1.5(a) and Section (a)(1): The areas and features include:

• Little Yosemite Valley
• The John Muir Trail between Little Yosemite Valley and Long Meadow
• All routes on Half Dome including the Cables, NW Regular Route and Snake Dike
• Sunrise and Merced Lake High Sierra Camps and backpackers’ camps
• The Sunrise Trail south of the Tenaya Lake Trail junction
• Clouds Rest, Sunrise Lakes, Emeric Lake and Babcock Lake

Trails and areas that remains open:

• The Mist, John Muir and Panorama Trails to the top of Nevada Falls
• Vogelsang Backpackers’ Camp
• The Tenaya Lake Trail
• Fletcher Creek Trail between Vogelsang and Merced Lake Range

They're currently saying 4434 acres: today's update.

Plus, it looks like they've slightly fine-tuned the closure area. Specifically, the closure map at the link shows Nelson Lake open, whereas the previous map showed it closed.

Let it burn. WILDERNESS. I don't get it.

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boomtown
Let it burn. WILDERNESS. I don't get it.

Yes, well it's a bit of wilderness that gets a lot of people. The high sierra camps are historic anachronisms, and might not get rebuilt if destroyed. If this fire were burning way in the back country, no one would mess with it.

From the incident report:

The highest priority is to secure the west flank to enable opening of the trail to Half Dome. The second priority is protection for the three High Sierra Camps, operated by the park concessionaire, located at Vogelsang, Sunrise Meadow and Merced Lake. Bears continue to be a major issue with fire crew safety in spike camps and along the fire line.

The fire now has its own InciWeb page.

Interesting issue, and assuming "beers" really means "bears"...

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InciWeb Remarks
Beers continue to be a major issue with fire crew safety in spike camps and along the fire line. Extensive measures are being taken not to attract beers to the food and other supplies. Trash is being backhauled daily.

"Beers continue to be a major issue with fire crew safety in spike camps and along the fire line. Extensive measures are being taken not to attract beers to the food and other supplies."
One time, perhaps a typo, but twice? The author must have had an after-work beer on their mind!
Personally, I always hope to attract beers to my food and other supplies (such as a campground neighbor offering me beer(s).

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PineCone
"Beers continue to be a major issue with fire crew safety in spike camps and along the fire line. Extensive measures are being taken not to attract beers to the food and other supplies."

One time, perhaps a typo, but twice? The author must have had an after-work beer on their mind!
Personally, I always hope to attract beers to my food and other supplies (such as a campground neighbor offering me beer(s).

Yes, those Mammoth Double Nut Brown beers can be very persistent anywhere food can be found.

It all the way to the top of Clouds Rest. Or, at least as close to the top as it could get. The trail is certainly affected. I suppose that they don't want any burning trees falling into Tenaya Canyon. Fighting a fire down in there would be really tough, and winds could take the fire west, north, and south from there:





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2014 01:34PM by wherever.

Page updated 10:56 AM...they corrected it.