Yosemite officials say Washburn Fire is human caused

Photo by: Yosemite Fire and Aviation - Facebook
Photo by: Yosemite Fire and Aviation - Facebook

(Yosemite National Park, CA) -- Officials at California's Yosemite National Park say the wildfire that's threatening two-thousand-year-old trees was started by a person.

Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon shared that at a community meeting Monday evening. Muldoon said there was no lightning last Thursday, when the Washburn Fire started, "so it's a human-start fire and it's under investigation."

The fire now covers more than 27-hundred acres and is 22-percent contained. The fire is burning on the edge of Mariposa Grove, home to more than 500 giant sequoias.