SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – As the Washburn Fire continues to threaten California's most iconic trees, the sequoias, firefighters work to simultaneously contain the blaze and protect the trees.
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As of Tuesday morning, the fire reached 22% containment and has grown to 3,221 acres, according to the fire's InciWeb page.
While the fire initially spread rather quickly, it has been growing at a much slower pace because mature trees take much longer to burn.
"These are large, very large trees – they've built a lot of homes in California," said Mark Ruggiero with Yosemite Fire. "So these trees take a long time to cool off."
"And often that's the problem, why we're not opening up roads and things because these trees cause a problem when they're still burning and if we can't cut them down they'll fall across roads, they'll fall across people," he said. "We have to be very careful."
The Wawona Road, Highway 41, is closed from the South Entrance to Henness Ridge Road and the Mariposa Grove areas have been evacuated until further notice.
The effort to tackle the fire has been made more difficult by the terrain, and a large number of dead or fallen trees have created hazards for firefighters. The trees burn quite hot, to the point where some trees were thrown up into the air on Monday, narrowly missing some aircraft.
But the fire scars from past fires around the perimeter are helping fire crews establish a containment line. While the weather has been hot, the lack of wind in the area has been helping firefighters as well.
A priority of fire crews has been making sure the much-embattled sequoia trees are protected as the blaze spreads. Over 500 mature giant sequoias are at risk in the National Park.
Structure wrap has been used in the past to keep the trees safe, but right now crews are using a ground-based sprinkler system in the Mariposa Grove instead, to increase the humidity in the area.
"We have people going in there, cleaning around the bases of the trees, eliminating the residual heat and so forth," said Matt Ahearn, Operations Section Chief for Incident Management Team 13 at a community meeting in Oakhurst on Monday.
"Overall it's in a very good place," he added.
The fire first broke out last Thursday afternoon near the Washburn Trail in the Mariposa Grove area of Yosemite National Park.
The blaze quickly swelled and the smoke caused the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to issue a moderate air quality advisory for parts of the Bay Area for Monday. For North Bay and East Bay communities, residents were advised to stay inside and people with respiratory illnesses were told to use caution.
While the exact cause for the fire is still unknown, it is likely to have been started by a human.
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