Firefighters were struggling to control the Ferguson Fire near Yosemite National Park/USFS, Jim Bartlett
While firefighters mourned a lost comrade Saturday, the deadly Ferguson Fire continued to grow at a rapid pace and enlarged its footprint inside Yosemite National Park.
The fire, which has claimed the lives of two firefighters, grew by more than 3,500 acres Friday night into Saturday and challenged crews on the ground to keep it away from the Foresta and Yosemite West communities and the historic Wawona Hotel complex.
Estimated at nearly 81,000 acres Friday night, the fire killed Brian Hughes, 33, last Sunday when a tree fell on him while he and his fellow hotshots were battling the flames. Hughes, a National Park Service firefighter from Sequoia National Park, was mourned Saturday morning at a memorial service in Fresno. A fundraising effort has been launched for his fiancé Paige, who is three months pregnant.
The fire, which started July 13 of an unknown cause, led to the death of another firefighter last month when the bulldozer he was operating rolled over on top of him.
On Friday the Yosemite Valley was ordered evacuated, as the firefighting effort was bringing heavy traffic onto the park road between Yosemite's Arch Rock Entrance and the South Entrance and thick smoke was creating unhealthy conditions in the valley. Electricity also was lost in the iconic valley. The Yosemite Valley, Wawona Road, the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, the Merced Grove of Giant Sequoias, Hetch Hetchy all were to remain closed to the public at least through Sunday.
Outside the park, Highway 140 was closed from 1.9 miles east of Midpines to the Cedar Lodge area.
A small army of nearly 3,000 firefighters, supported by 201 fire engines, 14 helicopters, and 36 bulldozers, worked in triple-digit temperatures in steep terrain to push containment lines around the fire. As of Saturday morning containment stood at 36 percent.
Friday night the fire pinned down about 100 incident personnel based out of Badger Pass as flames burning across Glacier Point Road made egress out of the park unsafe.
Half Dome was wrapped in smoke Saturday from the Ferguson Fire/NPS webcam
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My son Jon an myself were extreamly lucky to have visited the parks on 9th thru the 11th of July 2018 prior to the closing due to the sadness of the fire's. The park's were breathtaking, well kept and the Park Ranger's were a wealth of information. The Giant Sequoia's had been on my " Bucket List " ever since the first time I had read about them. My son and I had been alone on our trip scince he was a small child. We were so happy that we were able to be together to see the beauty an amazment of the view's, tree's and memorie's that were created during our visit. We thank the people who maintain and protect all the Park System's thru out the USA and the World. Hopefully my son will return when he has a family, and perhap's I will also return as My photo's do not due justice to the beauity of being there in person but I will have them to reflect on.