Hello again everyone and welcome to this weekend. The first potentially major wildfire in the area is currently burning strong and I can see the smoke plume from my front porch. This is the Washburn fire burning between the Mariposa Grove and the little town of Wowona. I believe it's actually made it into the Mariposa Grove area which is arguably a good thing because giant sequoias can only reproduce when there's been a fire. On the bad side of that equation, folks who live in the Wowona area have been evacuated because the fire is moving pretty quickly toward them. Last I saw it sat in at around 200 acres and hopefully it won't get much bigger. Though I'm sure it has increased in size some in any case because it's been around twelve hours since the last update. The cause is also under investigation, but it's common at this time of year for charcoal grills to be knocked over or someone at a camp ground to ignore the no fire rules and have a problem arise. Usually these things get handled without incident, but not always. Anyway, here's hoping things don't worsen there, people don't lose homes and the fire stays away from the very historic hotel.
