Conditions described here were accurate only as of the date shown and may have changed. This is not a substitute for current official information from the agency with jurisdiction. See the full notice. Full notice.
Dome Fire at 40 Percent as Crews Burn Out Near Glacier Point
5,777 acres. Containment has risen from 17 to 40 percent in a week; Glacier Point Road is still closed.
The Dome Fire grew 192 acres since Wednesday morning and is 40 percent contained, the Park Service says, about 5,777 acres in all. Part of that growth was set deliberately.
Crews are running firing operations near Glacier Point Road and the Bridalveil Creek Trail, burning dry brush and fallen trees between the fire and the control lines. It adds acres on paper, the park says, but builds stronger lines and keeps firefighters safer. Along Glacier Point Road, crews are chipping brush so it is less likely to burn, work the park expects to finish in about two days. Two drones with infrared sensors, one for day and one for night, are finding hot spots.
Over the week the shape of this fire has changed. Last Friday the park's count was 4,258 acres and 17 percent. Containment has more than doubled since, while the fire added about 1,500 acres, nearly all of it on the north and northeast edges inside the 2017 Empire Fire burn. Other sources run a little different: CAL FIRE's page showed 5,739 acres on Wednesday evening, and the latest mapped perimeter in the interagency data comes to about 5,855. This paper uses the park's figure.
Temperatures are rising and humidity is falling, but the park says the fire is not lined up with the terrain in a way that would let it run. A night inversion acted as a lid on the fire and trapped smoke: Yosemite Valley and El Portal started the day unhealthy for sensitive groups, improving this afternoon to mostly moderate, the same as Wawona.
Glacier Point Road remains closed for smoke and firefighting, with no reopening date. The Four Mile and Panorama trails to Glacier Point are open to hikers. The Chilnualna Falls trail, the trails from its top toward Buena Vista and Crescent Lakes, and the Ostrander Lake Trail and everything south of it are closed; the closed area extends east of the Wawona Road to Chinquapin. A new incident team, California Team 4, takes command Friday at 7 a.m. in a routine rotation.
Sources