MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE, Calif. – The York Fire burning inside California’s Mojave National Preserve (MNP) is still 0% contained and has so far scorched nearly 80,000 acres of land since the wildfire ignited last week.
The cause of the York Fire is still under investigation, but officials said it began on private land within the preserve and quickly spread from San Bernardino County in California into Clark County in neighboring Nevada.
The National Park Service (NPS) says nearly 400 firefighters are working to contain the fire from the ground and the air but have been met with challenging conditions, including “fire whirls” and thick smoke.
A fire whirl is a vortex of smoke and flames that form when intense heat and turbulent winds combine, creating a spinning column of fire that resembles a tornado.
“These fire whirls are similar to dust devils but are specifically associated with the heat and energy released by a wildfire,” the MNP said on Monday. “They can range in size from a few feet to hundreds of feet in height, and their rotational speed can vary widely.”
The situation is hazardous for firefighters because the fire whirls can spread embers across all directions, igniting new fires.
HOW THE LAY OF THE LAND AFFECTS WILDFIRE BEHAVIOR
In addition, the fire whirls can change directions quickly, making them unpredictable.
Firefighters tirelessly worked to contain the blaze and observed less fire activity on Monday than over the past few days. NPS officials said the fire’s intensity and spread were relatively low, which could help containment efforts.
An infrared mapping flight was expected to take place overnight and into the early morning hours Tuesday to obtain better mapping data, which would aid in firefighting resources, according to the NPS.
The firefighting efforts have been a coordinated response between resources from the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the San Bernardino Fire Protection District and the Clark County Fire Department.
According to Clark County officials, the York Fire’s progression toward the cities of Nipton, California and Searchlight, Nevada, has slowed, but fire crews remain on standby should winds shift or the speed of the fire increases.