Add fairy tale weddings to the list of casualties from the mammoth wildfire blazing in and around Yosemite National Park.
Hawaii couple Katie Sprouse, 33, and Jamil Folio, 36, spent a year making plans to exchange vows near the scenic park, where they were set to tie the knot before 70 relatives and friends on Saturday night — until the blaze started burning.
The so-called Rim Fire left the pair, who live in Maui, and two other couples with wedding dates at the evacuated Evergreen Lodge scrambling to make other arrangements, according to the Hawaii couple and lodge co-owner Lee Zimmerman.
Photo: Reuters
“I had everything planned six months ago,” said Sprouse, an archeologist. “A week ago Friday, as I was packing to leave, the lodge called me to say it wasn’t going to happen.”
Fallout from the wildfire, the fifth-largest on record in California after charring an area the size of Kansas City, Missouri, also forced the cancellation of the Strawberry Music Festival, a biannual bluegrass jamboree where Sprouse and Folio met two years ago.
On this holiday weekend, one of Yosemite’s busiest periods, thousands of tourists have had to revise their travel plans after the fire crossed into the park and forced road closures at the premier tourist destination. The fire has ravaged already struggling businesses in the area.
Proprietors had been counting on a healthy summer season to carry them through the slow winter months, particularly after an outbreak of the potentially deadly rodent-borne hantavirus scared off tourists last year.
Park spokeswoman Kari Cobb said the inferno had burned 6 percent of the landmark’s 302,705 hectares and forced the closure of four of 13 campgrounds.
About 4 million people visit Yosemite each year, with most going during the peak months of June through August. About 620,000 normally visit the park in August alone, but due to the fire, attendance has dropped.
“It’s not super substantial, but it is noticeable,” Cobb said of the drop.
The park’s most popular areas, including Yosemite Valley with the iconic Half Dome and El Capitan rock formations, remain open, Cobb said.
Proprietors who depend on tourism near parts of the park that have been closed off said they were struggling to stay alive.
Chris Loh, 38, who owns the Iron Door Saloon in Groveland, estimated his business had fallen 98 percent, forcing him to lay off 45 employees, most of his workforce.
“Last summer was the hantavirus; the summer before was a control fire that got out of control,” he said.
“To have multiple years of having our season shut down early is just devastating,” he added.
Yosemite Highway 120 Chamber of Commerce president James Nagle estimated that tourism to the area had dropped by 25 percent.
“A lot of the impacted businesses were counting on Labor Day weekend to get them through the winter,” he said.
The blaze burned two of five cabins that Eliote Durham manages on the Tuolumne River in the Stanislaus National Forest. It also destroyed a well house, eliminating the water source for the Spinning Wheel Ranch where the vacation rentals are located, she said.
Durham was allowed to go to the ranch and she took photographs of potholes left when trees burned like candles into the roots.
“We’re probably closed for the year,” she said. “It looks like a moonscape.”
The worst part for recovering businesses, Nagle said, is that when tourists do return, they will see a scorched landscape.
“It’s just ugly,” he said.
Sprouse and Folio will marry in the Butterfly Creek Winery on Saturday in Mariposa, about 48km south of their original wedding site, and plan to return next year to the Strawberry Music Festival, where they got engaged last year. They had planned to attend the event this year as part of their wedding celebration.
When the fire forced Camp Mather, the festival’s site, to be evacuated, organizers had to postpone the 32nd annual Labor Day bluegrass festival that draws about 5,000 guests.
“I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and we will see you all next year at our one-year anniversary!” Sprouse posted on a festival Facebook page.
The pledge by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to “work, work, work, work and work” for her country has been named the catchphrase of the year, recognizing the effort Japan’s first female leader had to make to reach the top. Takaichi uttered the phrase in October when she was elected as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Many were initially as worried about her work ethic as supportive of her enthusiasm. In a country notorious for long working hours, especially for working women who are also burdened with homemaking and caregiving, overwork is a sensitive topic. The recognition triggered a
Tropical Storm Koto killed three people and left another missing as it approached Vietnam, authorities said yesterday, as strong winds and high seas buffeted vessels off the country’s flood-hit central coast. Heavy rains have lashed Vietnam’s middle belt in recent weeks, flooding historic sites and popular holiday destinations, and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Authorities ordered boats to shore and diverted dozens of flights as Koto whipped up huge waves and dangerous winds, state media reported. Two vessels sank in the rough seas, a fishing boat in Khanh Hoa province and a smaller raft in Lam Dong, according to the
‘HEART IS ACHING’: Lee appeared to baffle many when he said he had never heard of six South Koreans being held in North Korea, drawing criticism from the families South Korean President Lee Jae-myung yesterday said he was weighing a possible apology to North Korea over suspicions that his ousted conservative predecessor intentionally sought to raise military tensions between the war-divided rivals in the buildup to his brief martial law declaration in December last year. Speaking to reporters on the first anniversary of imprisoned former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol’s ill-fated power grab, Lee — a liberal who won a snap presidential election following Yoon’s removal from office in April — stressed his desire to repair ties with Pyongyang. A special prosecutor last month indicted Yoon and two of his top
The Philippines deferred the awarding of a project that is part of a plan to build one of the world’s longest marine bridges after local opposition over the potential involvement of a Chinese company due to national security fears. The proposals are “undergoing thorough review” by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which acts as a lender and an overseer of the project to ensure it meets international environmental and governance standards, the Philippine Department of Public Works and Highways said in a statement on Monday in response to queries from Bloomberg. The agency said it would announce the winning bidder once ADB
RSS