The Rim Fire in Tuolumne County near Yosemite National Park continued to rage this week as firefighters resumed their increasingly successful efforts to extinguish it.
As of Aug. 29, the fire was 30 percent contained, a significant leap from 20 percent containment just two days before.
The cause of the Rim Fire, which started on Aug. 17, is still under investigation.
So far, the Rim Fire has cost $39 million, but the natural devastation has proven to be far worse.
According to CBS News, 201,894 acres have been burned, as well as 111 structures and 31 homes as of late last week. The high number of acres burned brings the Rim Fire into the top five worst fires in California history.
Officials have attributed the Rim Fire’s speedy devastation to the fact that it started and spread in areas of the forest in Tuolumne County that had not seen fires in almost a century.
It did not show signs of slowing until it reached areas where fires had not been present in the last 20 years.
Though the fire’s progression has begun to slow, it is likely to burn for months.
It is possible that we will not see an end until California’s dry season closes this fall.“My prediction is it will burn until we see rain,” said Hugh Safford, a regional ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service, of the Rim Fire in an interview with CBS news.
Already approximately 300 square miles in size, the fire continues to move east into Yosemite National Park.
Yosemite National Park Superintendent Don Nubacher stated last week that the fire had burned 20,000 acres out of the total 750,000 acres in that park.
However, none of the major attractions, such as Yosemite Falls or Half Dome in Yosemite Valley, have been touched by the flames.
Over 4,500 firefighters from all over have been called in to fight the Rim Fire’s blazes. Every day fire officials grow increasingly more confident, saying they expect to fully surround the fire within three weeks.
“We have thousands of firemen in our town right now,” said Jennifer Thomas (junior, Biological Sciences) of her hometown of Twain Harte, CA.
“Coming through, you see fire trucks from everywhere.”
There was certainly plenty of optimism to go around last week.
Incident team spokesman Glen Stratton was confident in the firefighters’ efforts during his interview with NBC news.
“It’s looking better every day. So far, everything is holding.”