Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMe_a73X8Io
{O/C} A merciless conflagration is menacing the iconic sequoias in California's Yosemite National Park, as NBC News reports.
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Tonight, the urgent battle to save one of Yosemite's most valued treasures is heating up.
The Mariposa Grove, home to the largest collection of giant sequoias in the park, some standing here for thousands of years, now under threat from an out-of-control inferno that's been tearing through drought-stricken brush since Thursday.
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NANCY PHILLIPE, Yosemite Fire Information Spokesperson:
It's some of the oldest trees that there are...They're the massive giants when you stand next to them.
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Crews are fighting the fire from the air and ground.
This, the Washburn Fire, has already ripped across more than 700 acres.
Parts of the park now closed during one of its busiest times.
The summer months here typically attract more than a million visitors.
The flames have forced an estimated 1,600 people to evacuate from a nearby community and popular campground.
Tonight, fears more evacuation may be on the way.
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Everybody's been training and preparing for this, and that's what everyone is here to do -- fight that fire.
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Over the Washburn incident, Yosemite National Park, Mariposa County...
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All of Yosemite is under what the California Drought Monitor calls "extreme or exceptional drought".
With almost no rainfall in recent months, conditions are prime for fires to burn hotter and for longer periods of time.
{Standup}
CAL PERRY, NBC News:
And we're now inside the Mariposa Grove and, as you can see, the fire has already burned through this section of the grove but it's still very much active in other parts and so much of the success that firefighters may have in the coming days is going to depend on the conditions.
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