New Yosemite Fire Restrictions Leading Up To Holiday

Yosemite, CA — As fire danger is increasing due to the drought, new fire restrictions have just taken effect in Yosemite National Park in advance of the Independence Day holiday.

The changes will impact many campers heading to the park this weekend. Around 20,000 visitors often pass through the gates during holiday weekends. The Federal Order is listed below:

–No building, maintaining, attending or using a fire, campfire, or cooking fire (including charcoal fires) within Yosemite National Park including designated Wilderness and at High Sierra Camps below 6,000 feet in elevation. Portable stoves using pressurized gas, liquid fuel, or propane are permitted as are alcohol stoves (with and without a shutoff valve) including alcohol tablet/cube stoves. “Sierra” (twig) stoves are not permitted.

–No smoking below 6,000 feet, except within an enclosed vehicle, a building in which smoking is allowed, a campground or picnic area where wood and charcoal fires are allowed or in a designated smoking area.

–Campfires and cooking fires may still be used in designated campgrounds in developed portions of the park in accordance with park regulations.

–Designated Campgrounds: Upper Pines, North Pines, Lower Pines, Camp 4, Wawona, Bridalveil Creek, Hodgdon Meadow, Crane Flat, Tamarack Flat, White Wolf, Yosemite Creek, Porcupine Flat and Tuolumne Meadows.

–Cooking fires may still be used in designated picnic areas in developed portions of the park in accordance with park regulations.

–Designated Picnic areas: Lembert Dome, Tenya Lake, Yosemite Creek, Wawona, Mariposa Grove, Glacier Point, Cascade, El Capitan, Cathedral Beach, Sentinel Beach, Swinging Bridge, Church Bowl and Lower Yosemite Falls.

–There are no administrative exemptions to this order.