Yosemite wildfire update: How wind conditions are affecting Washburn Fire suppression

Fire conditions remain troublesome. Hot, and dry. The potential for active to very active fire behavior remains this week. But fire crews working the Washburn Fire burning in Yosemite National Park are benefiting from a lack of wind. A Sunday evening update listed the fire at 4,864 acres burned with 51% containment, the same as it was about eight hours earlier.

“That’s a good sign,” said Stanley Bercovitz, public information officer with California Interagency Incident Management Team 13. “That’s what happens when it’s not a wind-driven fire. It’s still hot out there, but most of the time people think in terms of a wind-driven fire where it’s just gobbling up land. Here, it’s just a completely different fire.

“We just had a meeting and no one wanted to breach the topic, because it was just, ‘Let’s not jinx us.’ Everyone is pretty ecstatic, and to get homeowners and residents back into Wawona (Sunday morning), that was huge. I was talking to some people from the Caldor Fire up at South Lake Tahoe last year and it was two months.”

Fire crews continue to work the east flank of the fire south of the south fork of the Merced River near Iron Creek, where most of the fire activity is occurring in heavy dead and downed timber. The potential for spot fires north of the south fork of the Merced River in the Johnson Creek area remains.

“I’d like for there to be a little bit of a change in the numbers,” Bercovitz said. “They’ll do an (infrared) flight (Sunday night) and they’ll be able to spot heat, whether it’s inside, on or on the outside of the line.

“They’ll be able to show with the infrared cameras where the heat signatures are and what they do, the next day they’ll send crews to attack those spots they see. It saves someone from having to hunt for it.”

The Washburn Fire has been burning since July 7, and its cause remains under investigation.

While the area of Wawona remains under a fire advisory, evacuation orders were lifted and residents and property owners started to return with an escort and proof of residency Sunday morning.