A California wildfire known as the "Rim Fire" that has burned through 200-square miles has now spread into Yosemite National Park, 5,500 homes currently at risk as firefighters struggle to contain the massive blaze, CBS News reports.
"It's crazy, and it has been for five days," Kirsten Lennon, whose home is threatened, told CNN affiliate KCRA. "Your heart's racing a little faster."
Due to a threat to its power supply via utility transmission, the governor of San Francisco, Gov. Jerry Brown, ordered the city to shut down two of its hydroelectric power plants in a state of emergency. San Francisco gets 85 percent of its water supplies from a reservoir in the Yosemite area, located merely 4 miles from the fire.
"It's scary," resident David Husid told CBS News. "You just don't want to see your house go up. We've got so many memories in the last year."
Thick smoke fills the valleys, plumes so big they create their own weather patterns inside, making it nearly impossible for firefighting crews to predict where the fire will spread to next. Dry bush and rugged terrain make it difficult to battle the inferno on foot and build containment lines.
"It's like 'Backdraft' the movie," said Husid. "It sucks the air out, and all of the sudden you get a wind coming from nowhere, and it's not windy up here, and it's just the fire that's pulling all the oxygen, so it can breathe."
At least 17 miles of Yosemite National Park have gone up in flames, and park spokesperson Kari Cobb told CBS that the park has stopped issuing permits to allow backpackers to visit the remote area of the park near Lake Eleanor.
"Right now there are no closures, and no visitor services are being affected in the park," Cobb said. "We just have to take one day at a time."
The massive blaze that has burned through nearly 126,000 acres has only been 5 percent contained so far.
