Firefighters, Inmates Battle Forest Blaze

About 900 firefighters and prison inmates in Mariposa County battled a 1,300-acre forest fire Sunday that was sparked when a lawn mower blade nicked a rock in tall weeds just outside Stanislaus National Forest, authorities said.

Emergency workers evacuated 100 people whose neighborhoods were threatened by flames in Hunters Valley about 5 p.m. Saturday, said Capt. Keith Johnson of the California Department of Forestry.

But the evacuees were allowed to go home Sunday morning after that threatening edge of the blaze was controlled, he said.

The fire began about 12:45 p.m. Saturday when a farmer who was clearing weeds from his land under the state-mandated weed-abatement program drove his mower over a rock, causing a spark from the mower’s metal blades, Johnson said.

By midafternoon Sunday, the fire had spread to the southeast, just east of Lake McClure in Hunters Valley, to within three miles of the town of Bear Valley, he said.

Firefighters from state and federal agencies and the fire departments of Mariposa and Madera counties joined about 575 inmates from the California Department of Corrections and California Youth Authority to battle the blaze, which burned through rugged terrain where there are few fire roads, Johnson said.

The inmates made up 34 crews of about 17 members each who did most of the work of cutting a firebreak around the burned areas, he said.

Two firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion after collapsing in the 95-degree air in the fire area, but were not seriously injured, Johnson said. Another suffered a minor cut to his leg from a chain saw.

Winds that were expected to reach of 12 m.p.h. failed to develop Sunday, which helped firefighters contain the blaze, he said. Firefighters probably would be able to keep the flames from reaching Bear Valley, with a population of 300, and Coulterville, a town of 600 about four miles from the burn area, he said.

Johnson said the firefighters planned to have the fire surrounded by 10 a.m. today and under control by 10 a.m. Tuesday.

The fire was not expected to reach Yosemite National Park, about 30 miles away, said Beth Healy, a fire dispatcher for the National Park Service. “It’s got to do some serious running before it gets to us,” she said.