A firefighter walks past a backfire while battling the Washburn Fire in Yosemite National Park, Calif.,Monday, July 11, 2022. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Washburn Fire Managers Report 31% Contained

Posted by: SNO Staff July 15, 2022 0 2,359 Views

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK–The Washburn Fire is currently burning within the Yosemite National Park (YNP) boundary near the Mariposa Grove area. The Mariposa Grove is closed indefinitely. The community of Wawona has been evacuated including residents, employees, and park guests. The southern entrance to YNP via Highway 41 through Oakhurst is closed. The majority of YNP is open and can be accessed through the other entrances on Highways 140 and 120.

Update 7.15.2022

Inciweb has updated the size of the #WashburnFire to 4759 acres and 31% contained.

Divisions A and Z are secure and in the mop-up stage. Mop-up is a term used to describe extinguishing the residual fire to make sure it doesn’t continue to spread outside of an established containment area. Mop-up includes actions like breaking apart smoldering debris, ensuring embers are completely extinguished, or moving burned debris so it cannot roll downhill and ignite previously unburned fuels.

Fire Managers have also added contingency lines/plans to maps. These include southeast and east along Sky Ranch Road from near Fresno Dome up to Grizzly Creek area and forks along roads 05S049/8. Crews are also scouting and prepping lines but Grizzly Creek is still in the planning/scouting mode.

Washburn Fire Operational Map for Friday, July 15, 2022.

Last night’s community meeting in Oakhurst was well attended and broadcast live from our Facebook Page here.

Updates from the fire managers at the community meeting included:

The fire continues to move east and spot ahead, advancing approximately 1/2-3/4 of a mile a day consistently. The fire is currently .2-.3 of a mile away from Iron Creek. There are 7 hot shot crews on the far eastern end of the fire.
The ridge east of Wawona Point to Raymond Mountain continues to hold well, 100 hot shots are there now and officials anticipate calling that area contained in the next 48 hours. Firefighters are continuing to clean up around Mariposa Grove and the grove itself remains unscathed.
The Hwy 41 road system to Stud Horse Trail is looking very well. All of the spot fires to the north of the river are contained.

Yosemite Fire and Aviation’s Facebook Page says stay-tuned for a resident re-population update in the very near future. To stay updated with alerts from Yosemite National Park sign up for the alert system here. The protection of both life and property continues to be a top priority. Fire conditions, behavior and weather continue to be assessed every 24 hours in order to prepare for re-population. Conditions have continued to improve.

An expanded Forest Closure Order issued on the U.S. Forest Service – Sierra National Forest.

Today’s video update is available here.

Washburn Fire tweet of pictures from Bryan Thomson on July 13th, 2022.