Skip to content

Archive for

Jul 23

4 Comments

Oak Fire – 3rd Time is the Charm?

8/7/22 Update: As of 6:59 pm the Oak Fire is 19,244 acres with 94% containment.

8/1/22 Update: As of 6:53 pm the Oak Fire is 19,244 acres with 74% containment.

7/29/22 Update: As of 7:38 am the Oak Fire is 19,208 acres with 45% containment.

7/27/22 Update: As of 3:54 pm the Oak Fire is 18,715 acres with 32% containment.

7/26/22 Update: As of 9:24 am the Oak Fire is 18,087 acres with 26% containment.

7/25/22 Update: As of 8:56 am the Oak Fire is 16,791 acres with 10% containment.

7/24/22 Update: As of 6:59 pm the Oak Fire is 15,603 acres with 0% containment.

7/23/22 Update: As of 9:10 pm the Oak Fire is 11,900 acres with 0% containment.

FRIDAY, JUNE 22

We’re getting ready to leave for our RV trip this Sunday. So on Friday afternoon while walking down to our RV, I saw this . . .

June 22, Friday, 3:30 pm

Yep, another wildfire near us. It’s called the Oak Fire, and it started in Midpines which is about 7 miles from us.

At about 5 pm, I took this picture from the Pioneer Market grocery store . . .

Looking north east from the Pioneer Market entrance at 5 pm

Jan and I decided to get our RV out a day early and load it up so that we could leave in a hurry.

By 8:20 pm the fire was about 1,700 acres and growing when I took this picture from inside Idle Wheels RV park . . .

We were all getting anxious as the fire had quickly grown to 1,700 acres

As we took our evening walk around Idlewheels, we met a couple who had been evacuated from Midpines and were staying in their camper at Idle Wheels

Shortly thereafter we saw another camper in the street set up for the night . . .

SATURDAY, JUNE 23

Sunrise
Campers filling up a Mariposa parking lot
As of early Saturday the fire the Oak Fire is up to 6,500 acres

Since we arrived in Mariposa, we knew wildfires were a fact of life, and this is one of the reasons we bought the RV . . . so that we can get out of Dodge in a hurry.

Also, we investigated “escape” routes . . . roads that we could use to get out of town. These are colored GREEN in the map above:

  • Highway 49 – the northern route of this road contains hairpin turns and steep drop offs making it the worst escape route. The southern route towards Oakhurst is one of the best ways. However, part of the road is now closed because of the Oak Fire.
  • Ben Hur Road – we discovered this road when we camped at Codorniz Campground on Eastman Lake. While much of this route is ok, some of it gets very bumpy.
  • Highway 140 – this road leads to Merced and is probably the best escape route. Part of this road was closed due to the Aqua Fire, but Highway 140 is now reopened.