With the ongoing ramifications of climate change, as well as those presented seasonally in the far-western United States, forest fires have astronomically increased in size, range, and combustibility. Such adjectives can easily be attributed to the firestorm currently still in action near the borders of Yosemite Sam’s namesake, Yosemite National Park in Groveland, California.
Firemen in the proximity of the blaze, as of Aug. 25, have quelled only seven percent of its 205 square mile track. That equates to 14.35 miles.
According to the firefighters, as well as the National Weather Service, winds could whip up to around 50-miles per hour, heavily increasing the flames’ swath of destruction.
The National Weather Service also attested to 8,300 firefighters combating nearly 400 square miles of burning throughout the state, notably in Lake Tahoe and San Francisco.
The menace currently disparaging Yosemite is called a “Rim Fire,” and is capable of incinerating some 4,500 structures, including rare, Sierra-Nevada exclusive sequoia trees, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
The park remained in operation on Aug. 25 with clear skies and pristine air, while the approaching fire was only 20 miles away.
In the last few years, wildfires such as this have become common happenings. Last summer’s notorious series of wildfires in Colorado capped off a record-breaking Indian summer of heat, drought, and humidity.
A Rolling Stone article written by Osha Gray Davidson entitled “The Great Burning: How Wildfires Are Threatening the West” was published on the magazine’s website on Aug. 1 as well as in their most recent issue, where rural political procedures, as well as startling temperature statistics made the inexplicable rise of the wildfires seem inevitable.
The National Weather Service, for the week of Aug. 26, has also issued numerous reports of high temperatures and scant rainfall amounts in the Midwest and central parts of the country.