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Authorities blocked access to the park's largest stand of
sequoias and told visitors to leave nearby areas, as
firefighters battled the blaze, which had burned 250 acres (101
hectares) by 12 p.m. (1500 ET) on Friday, officials said.
None of Yosemite's landmark sequoias, some of which are more
than 3,000 years old and have been given names, were reported
destroyed by the fire, which began in the Mariposa Grove area.
The cause of the blaze was unknown, a fire official said.
"There is some torching, but we're not seeing that on the named
trees that's been reported yet," said Nancy Phillipe of Yosemite
fire information, referring to when fire kills a tree by
igniting its canopy.
The largest trees in the world by volume, giant sequoias
coexisted for millennia with lightning-ignited fires that
improved forest health through their natural range of the
western Sierra Nevada in California.
More than a century of federal fire suppression and poor
management has choked American forests with dead trees and brush
that fuel wildfires, biologists say. Combined with drier
conditions blamed on climate change, this has made the West's
wildfires far more destructive. Fires now burn year-round rather
than from early summer to late fall.
The United States is having its worst wildfire year in more than
a decade, around 4.7 million acres (1.9 million hectares)burned
year-to-date. That is more than twice the 10-year average,
according to National Interagency Fire Center data.
New Mexico and Alaska have suffered large, intense wildfires.
California is vulnerable, with nearly the entire state
experiencing some level of drought.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Editing by Chris Reese
and Jonathan Oatis)
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