Lions Fire located in the Sierra National Forest of California started with a lightning strike on June 11, 2018. At present the fire has consumed 3,107 acres and is currently burning in the Ansel Adams Wilderness. Portions of the fire have burned into areas without excess vegetation so the fire’s progression has slowed. Winds are forecast to shift and there is still a good amount of dense underbrush in the area that could cause a resurgence of the fire. No evacuations are in place and no structures are being threatened currently although some trails are closed. All recreational services and areas are open in and around Mammoth Lakes. The Pacific Crest Trail and the John Muir Trail are both open at this time.
Fire crews are taking the opportunity to turn this into a prescribed fire and allow this blaze to continue as long as it does not grow out of control. Wildland fire is absolutely necessary in this part of the country. Fires although destructive on the face also serve the purpose of naturally removing the accumulation of excess wildfire fuel. Allowing the fire some leeway to burn will also help diminish the risk of larger, more severe fires in the future.
NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of the fire and smoke blowing from it on June 28, 2018 with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument. Actively burning areas (hot spots), detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. Each hot spot is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than background. When accompanied by plumes of smoke, as in this image, such hot spots are diagnostic for fire. NASA image courtesy of the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) project. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from Inciweb.