Firefighters have made significant progress battling the ferocious Oak fire burning in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Yosemite national park, achieving 45% containment by Friday morning. The blaze has consumed more than 19,200 acres, fueled through the dry, overgrown vegetation coating the hillsides and favorable fire conditions that spurred erratic and extreme behavior.
Many have still been kept from their homes as the fire continues to spread since igniting last week, as residents await word on whether theirs was one of the 162 structures reported destroyed. That number could go up as damage assessment crews work to investigate the destruction, and hundreds of houses still lie in the fire’s path.
