Fire threatens Yosemite National Park in California

A fire that breaks 1,000 hectares arrived Monday to nearby Yosemite National Park, one of the biggest tourist attractions in California. The fire started Saturday and has since been forced to close one of the main entrances to the park. On Monday afternoon, authorities reported that they had managed to control the fire by 5%. The data is the only progress so far against the flames.

Some 580 firefighters work a fire in climatic conditions aggravated by prolonged drought in California, in a dry, hard ground. The fire is in the area known as El Portal. Three camping areas have been evacuated. The park remained open to the public on Monday.

The fire has burned so far a house in the town of Foresta. About 200 people from 45 homes have been evacuated. Residents cited by The Fresno Bee said the fire was being bears park towards the houses of El Portal and feared to enter for food while they are away.

The largest recorded fire in this area was in 2013, when 100,000 acres burned.

Nearby, to the east of the city of Sacramento, another fire has destroyed 13 homes and forced the evacuation of a thousand people from the foothills of Sierra Nevada. The fire had consumed 1,500 acres on Monday but fighting equipment had been contained one-third of the fire. On Monday afternoon, it had already been contained half the fire and the authorities began to permit evacuees to return to their homes.

California is seeing one of the worst droughts in its history, which has lasted three years and has worsened in the first six months of 2014. According to the Forest Protection Department of California collected by Efe, until July 19 had been produced 3,400 fires had burned 20,600 acres, well above the 2,500 fires and 12,100 acres burned in a regular year.

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Posted by Jamshed Sindhu on Jul 31 2014. Filed under USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.