The 2013 Rim Fire was the largest wildfire in the history of the Sierra Nevada. Started by the illegal campfire of a hunter nearby on August 17, the fire quickly reached a massive conflagration that consumed 1,041.31 km^2 of forest, threatening Giant Sequoia groves and the
Hetch-Hetchy Reservoir for San Francisco in Yosemite National Park. Several famed campsites, including Camp Mather, were damaged or destroyed. Finally the fire was controlled with a force of 5000 firefighters and $127 million. Several nearby towns, including Groveland, Big Oak Flat,
Sonora,
Coulterville , and
Mariposa , already badly hurt financially when the 2013 Government Shutdown closed down Yosemite, were further devastated by the fires and have yet to recover. The charred and stripped landscape remains evidence of that devastating fire.
This area, swept clean by the Rim Fire, seems to be slowly recovering South of Camp Mather. Nearby Camp Tuolumne, a camp for the City of Berkeley, is estimated to required four years to rebuild.
Stanislaus National Forest, Buck Meadows, California
