The Washburn fire is estimated at 60 to 70 acres and is burning near the lower Mariposa Grove, Yosemite park officials said. Firefighters are working from the ground and air to extinguish the blaze, and park officials said the grove is closed until further notice. Mariposa Grove is home to more than 500 giant sequoia trees that can grow to over 250 feet tall. And although the grove was founded in 1857, they have been around long before that, with some believed to be over 2,000 years old. In recent years, the western United States has been ravaged by wildfires exacerbated by climate change-related drought conditions. In California alone, more than 2.5 million acres were destroyed in nearly 9,000 fires last year, according to CAL FIRE. Last month, officials in Southern California said they were bracing for another challenging summer and fall amid a shortage of firefighting crews and increased workloads.
The threat is not limited to California. Robert Garcia, fire chief for the Angeles National Forest, said the summer months are off to a “disturbing” start. Firefighting resources have been mobilized since March in Arizona and New Mexico, where the Black Fire just became the state’s second-largest wildfire on record.
“Southern California typically has a fire season historically in late June and then into the fall,” Chief Garcia told CNN last month. “But now we’re seeing year-round activity.”
Yosemite is one of the most visited national parks in the US, attracting more than 3.3 million people in 2021. It covers nearly 1,200 square miles in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of eastern California.
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