Brush Fire Near Popular California Lake Prompts Evacuations

A brush fire outside Yosemite National Park in California has forced the shut down of a major highway and the evacuation of a resort town near the Nevada border, officials said.

The Inn fire ignited on Thursday afternoon and had burned more than 700 acres near Mono Lake, Calif., in Inyo National Forest by Friday afternoon, according to Cal Fire, the state’s fire fighting agency.

Mono City, an unincorporated community of roughly 200 people northwest of the lake, was under evacuation. The Mono Inn restaurant and Tioga Lodge hotel, two popular establishments, had also been evacuated, according to the Mono County Sheriff’s Office. The restaurant and the hotel sit just off Highway 395, the major artery in the region that was expected to remain closed through Friday afternoon, officials said.

Highway 395 was closed mainly because of safety reasons, Lisa Cox, a spokeswoman for Inyo National Forest, told the local news organization Sierra Wave Media on Friday. “Power lines have burned, power lines are down across the highway,” she said. “We have to helicopter power line poles in.”

The fire was spreading slowly through a landscape of mostly sagebrush in a northern direction toward Mono City. Chloe Castillo, a spokeswoman for Cal Fire, said firefighting efforts were focused on containing the fire’s north end. “It’s creeping and smoldering in that area,” she said.

Helicopters were pulling water from Mono Lake and Lundy Lake on Thursday and Friday and dropping it on the flames, Ms. Cox said. Air tankers have also been assisting and releasing flame retardant, but not over Mono Lake and Mill Creek.