People
come to Yosemite National Park expecting awe-inspiring views and great camping
amidst the park’s granite peaks and forested lowlands. In September 2014, some
visitors got much more than that.
A
small wildfire had been burning in Yosemite for weeks before it suddenly
quadrupled in size in early September due to strong winds and high
temperatures. Park authorities needed helicopters to evacuate dozens of
visitors from back-country locations on September 7, 2014, including 85
climbers airlifted from the summit of Half Dome and approximately 100 hikers
picked up from campgrounds in Little Yosemite Valley. Several people posted
photographs of the evacuation to social media sites as they were being ferried
away.
A
NASA satellite orbiting 725 kilometers (450 miles) overhead captured images of
the Meadow fire from above on September 7, 2014. The Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured the top
image of wildfire activity in Little Yosemite Valley. Red outlines indicate hot
spots where MODIS detected the unusually warm land surface temperatures
associated with fires. The lower image was taken by Yosemite National Park
staff on September 7, 2014. Half Dome is on the left, with a smoke plume rising
from Little Yosemite Valley to its right.
Lightning
first ignited the Meadow fire on July 20. For several weeks, park officials let
the small, high-altitude (8,000 feet or 2,440 meters) blaze burn in order to
preserve the park’s natural fire patterns and because it posed no threat to
public safety, according to The Los Angeles Times. Indeed, the fire had burned
just 19 acres (8 hectares) over the first 49 days.
Then
winds surged on September 7 and the Meadow fire suddenly flared up. By
September 8, the fire had charred 2,582 acres (1,044 hectares). Though it is
large enough to provoke dramatic photographs from the ground, the fire is small
compared to California’s largest fires. For comparison, the Happy Camp Complex
fire in northern California has burned more than 99,000 acres and was only
partly contained as of the same date.
Visit
Worldview, a satellite image-browsing tool maintained by the MODIS Rapid
Response Team, to track the fires over time.
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