Almost 3 weeks ago, there was a thunder and lightning storm in Mineral King. A lightning strike started a fire, and it looked as if it would be quick to suppress the thing.
Being somewhat cynical, perhaps because we’ve lived through the “easy to suppress” lightning strikes in 2020 and 2021, I had my doubts that the various agencies would be in agreement and just squash that thing.
While driving home from Salem one week later, I received texts from friends in both Visalia and Exeter, inquiring about my safety because they could see flames from their towns. WHAT??
Trail Guy took this photo on the day I received those texts. That single column had babies.
One friend sent me a photo her Facebook feed (“feed”? “stream”? “account”?) showing 2 areas of flame at night as seen from either Exeter or Visalia. (There is something about a photo from that platform that forbids my saving and showing it to you.)
On our next trip up the hill a few days later, it looked like this:
Each day in Mineral King began with clear air, and then somewhere around 9 or 10 a.m., the smoke would drift up the canyon and obscure all our views. Where is Farewell Gap?
On the way down the hill on Monday, this is what we saw:
We also saw BLM equipment, a Forest Service car, 2 Yosemite fire people, and a helicopter dipping water out of the East Fork.
The latest report at the time of this viewing is that the fire has grown to 850-900 acres, is not contained (well, duh, because what does “containment” mean when it was “contained” before it erupted into this conflagration?) and is heading toward the South Fork drainage in Three Rivers.
Here we go again. . . sigh.
P.S. For current info on the Coffeepot Fire, go to WatchDuty.org.