Another fire has popped up in the extremely dry Sierra just outside Yosemite and Mariposa in the Merced River Canyon. This one named the “Telegraph Fire” has already jumped to 1000 acres in size.
Mariposa Gazette: “A wildland fire now called the Telegraph Fire has grown to over 1,000 on both side of the Merced River Canyon in less than 5 hours. At around 7:30 p.m. this evening (Friday) Incident Commander Bill Hodson said there was still no way to get personnel on the blaze and CAL FIRE along with all of the other firefighting agencies were determining how to ‘built a Box’ around the fire to let it burn out. Another CAL FIRE team like the one that responded to the Oliver Fire is setting up camp at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds. Many of the resources will be arriving overnight. All eyes in the town of Mariposa were turned skyway around 6:30 p.m. when the gigantic DC10 firefighting tanker flew directly over town on its way to the fire. The plane will hold better than an Olympic-sized pool of water or retardant, and reportedly costs around $50,000 per hour to respond. The tanker laid down a line of retardant that was holding as of 7:45 tonight. Helicopters (3) will be making water drops on the fire until dark, trying to cool down hot spots.”