Dove fire burns near Yosemite, prompting evacuation orders in Sonora

Backed by water tankers and a helicopter, firefighters on Sunday fought to contain a stubborn wildfire in Northern California that prompted officials to order evacuations.

Authorities said they hadn’t yet pinpointed a cause for the Dove fire, which burned in the hills southwest of Sonora — a town outside of Yosemite National Park in southern Tuolumne County. As of 10 p.m., the blaze had spread to 223 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

By then, mandatory evacuation orders had been issued for residents whose homes were threatened by the fire in an area bounded roughly byStockton Road to the north, Highway 108 to the south, McKibbon Drive to the east and Washington Street to the east. Evacuation warnings also were issued for some areas of downtown Sonora.

An evacuation shelter opened at 5:30 p.m. at a county government office at 18241 Bay Ave., in Tuolumne, while residents with pets could go to two locations in nearby Jamestown: Animal Control, at 10040 Victoria Way, or the Posse Grounds, at 19130 Rawhide Road.

The fire’s spread seemed to slow around 5:20 p.m., when it covered 166 acres, before it started to expand again. No structures had been damaged or destroyed as of Sunday night, according to Cal Fire.

Cal Fire had amassed multiple air tankers, one helicopter, 22 fire engines and four bulldozers to support the 225 fire personnel who were fighting the blaze.

Researchers warn that rising global temperatures due to climate change will lead to more frequent and intense wildfires in the future. The amount of U.S. land burned each year in the 2020s — averaged out over a decade — is now more than twice what it was 30 years ago.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.