A wildfire that broke out Friday near Yosemite National Park in California has burned several thousand acres and led to evacuations of 3,000 residents in the area, as an ongoing heat wave continued to bake much of the country over the weekend. (On Saturday, California's Death Valley reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit, and Palm Springs, Calif., hit 114 degrees.)
A firefighter extinguishes flames as the Oak Fire crosses Darrah Rd. in Mariposa County, Calif., on Friday, July 22, 2022. Crews were able to to stop it from reaching an adjacent home. A wildfire that broke out Friday near Yosemite National Park in California has burned several thousand acres and led to evacuations of 3,000 residents in the area, as an ongoing heat wave continued to bake much of the country over the weekend.
"Smoke from the fire — which can be seen from the International Space Station — prompted an air quality advisory for the San Francisco Bay Area on Monday," CBS News reported on Monday morning. The risk of wildfires has been exacerbated by climate change, which has caused more frequent and severe heat waves and droughts. Currently, the West is enduring a two-decade mega-drought that has led to the water in the nation's largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, dropping to"critical levels,"