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Tourism flaming out as Yosemite wildfire still rages

31 August 2013 01:06 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Fire crews battling to outflank a monster wildfire inside Yosemite National Park made more headway on Friday in confining flames to the wilderness areas but were powerless to save the area's tourist economy towards the end of its peak summer travel season, APA reports quoting Reuters.

By morning, the tally of charred landscape from the so-called Rim Fire surpassed 200,000 acres, or nearly 315 square miles, three-quarters of that in the Stanislaus National Forest west of the park, fire officials said.

But a second straight night of cooling temperatures and higher humidity helped firefighters extend containment lines around nearly a third of the fire's perimeter by the start of its 14th day.

"I can't say we've turned a corner just yet, but we are making very good progress," U.S. Forest Service spokesman Dick Fleishman said. "We're going to keep chugging away."

With an overall footprint that now exceeds the land mass of Kansas City, Missouri, the blaze ranks as the fifth-largest California wildfire on record.

In terms of acreage burned, it also stands as the largest of dozens of wildfires that have raged across several states in the drought-parched west this year, straining U.S. firefighting resources.

A force of nearly 5,000 personnel are now assigned to the Rim Fire, mostly ground crews laboring around the clock with hand tools, chain saws and torches to cut fire breaks in the rugged terrain by clearing away unburned trees and dry brush.

Less than a quarter of the total burned acreage from the blaze lies inside Yosemite, and firefighters there have succeeded in confining most of the damage to wilderness and backcountry areas in the park's remote northwestern corner.

The most popular portions of the park remained open to the public, including the scenic Yosemite Valley area famed for its towering granite rock formations, waterfalls, meadows and pine forests.