Sierra wildfire slowly progresses near Yosemite

A photo from Stanislaus National Forest showing the Sheering Fire burning northwest of Yosemite.

A wildfire raging about 65 miles south of Minden, near Strawberry, gained ground overnight, with about 500 acres burned, according to the Resource Management fire information map.

Officially, the Sheering Fire was 370 acres as of last night as it burned in forests on the western slope of the Sierra, northwest of Yosemite National Park, according to Inciweb.

“The fire is primarily burning on the Lost Creek flank,” said Incident Commander Shaun Craig. “There are small, short-lived surges that occur from deployment to the sewers.”

Isolated and clustered tree fires have been observed in areas outside of dense fruit tree areas where the canopy is still intact due to decaying shrub growth, according to Stanislaus National Forest spokesman Ben Cossel.
“A lot of snags in the area have fallen and have significantly increased the fuel load, although it doesn't have much impact on the rate of spread,” he said.

In addition to ground resources on scene, aerial resources were assigned to the fire Tuesday and more than 17,000 gallons of water were deployed to the fire by the Stanislaus National Forest Helitak team.
With winds expected to blow from the north over the next few days, smoke from the fire could stay away from Carson Valley.

Air quality indicators in the valley were mostly in the good to moderate range this morning, with ranches in Gardnerville reading around 50 at 4 a.m.