Photo: AP / Noah Berger
Firefighters continued to battle the deadly Ferguson Fire outside Yosemite National Park on Monday after hotter temperatures all weekend increased the danger for more than 3,000 structures in its path, according to The Mercury News.
Six firefighters have already been injured and one killed while fighting the 51-square-mile fire outside the national park's west side with evacuation orders remaining in place for several rural communities through the rugged terrain and even more residents were put on evacuation alert by Monday evening.
Almost 3,5000 structures including homes, stores, vacation cabins, and power lines are listed as threatened by the growing blaze and the forecast for this week has temperatures above 100 degrees until Friday.
Yosemite remained open but the popular tourist route Glacier Point Road was closed to the public so firefighters could utilize the street.
“Weather forecasts are calling for hotter and drier air throughout the week as conditions align for critical and extreme fire weather in the coming days,” fire managers said in an update early Monday. “The fire is 13 percent contained and one non-residential structure has been reported destroyed but dozens more have been saved because of the efforts of crews throughout the fire area."
More than 3,000 firefighters were on the ground fighting the growing inferno along with numerous firefighting airplanes and helicopters which have been dropped fire retardant on the blaze.
Fire analysts said it was possible the Ferguson Fire could burn far enough north to meet the burn scar left by the 2013 Rim Fire, which burned more than 400 square miles and was one of the state's largest wildfires ever.
The Rim Fire scorched into portions of Yosemite but also gives firefighters an edge since the burnt terrain is far less likely to burn intensely.
However, the current terrain on fire is extremely rugged, so much so that firefighters had to wait several days to recover the body of firefighter Braden Varney, 36, who died after his bulldozer rolled over while setting up a perimeter line for the fire on July 14.
The Ferguson Fire had generated so much smoke by Monday that air pollution levels in Yosemite Valley were worse than Beijing, which has one of the world's highest air pollution levels.
The levels of soot in the area have been up to seven times higher than the U.S. federal health standards recommended limit and far above what the Environmental Protection Agency defines as "hazardous" for all people, including healthy adults.
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Park officials had to caution some tourists from coming into the park until the fire was under control since the valley was covered in the thick smoke.
“I’ve never seen numbers this high, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” said Dave Conway, deputy officer for the Mariposa County Air Pollution Control District.
The fire started on July 13 but has since burned an area in California larger than the city of San Francisco.
The air quality monitoring equipment at the Yosemite Visitor Center captured particulate pollution levels twice the concentration measured by the air monitor at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing over the same time period since July 15.
The peak particulate levels in the valley were nearly five times as high as Beijing last Wednesday at 518 vs. 106 micrograms per cubic meter of particulates in the air.
The EPA defines anything above 35 averaged over 24 hours to be an unsafe level.
-WN.com, Maureen Foody
