SEQUOIA AND KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARKS, Calif., 7 October 2023 –Fire management staff at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks plan to begin ignitions on the Grant Grove Prescribed Burn, in the Grant Grove area of Kings Canyon National Park on Sunday, October 15. 520 acres of burning are planned over the course of 4-6 days of ignitions.

Visitors to the area on ignition days should expect moderate smoke impacts to the Grant Grove sub-district, as well as intermittent traffic delays. At night, smoke may be discernible in the parks’ lower elevations, the Hume Lake Ranger District of Sequoia National Forest, and the Highway 245 and 180 corridors. Visitors can learn more about air quality and smoke by visiting https://fire.airnow.gov/.

Access to popular areas such as the General Grant Tree, the Grant Tree Trail, and the Grant Tree Road, as well as trail systems in the surrounding area, will be temporarily closed during ignitions. Azalea Campground will also be closed during ignitions. Firefighters will endeavor to limit the duration of these closures as much as possible. Updates about the prescribed burn including current closures will be available at https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/ in the days leading up to, during, and following ignitions. 

Much of area surrounding Grant Grove burned severely during the 2015 Rough Fire and the 2021 KNP Complex Fire. The Grant Grove area itself was protected from the worst of those impacts in large part by the parks’ long history of prescribed burning in the area. This is a mission that the Sequoia and Kings Canyon Fire and Aviation program continues to uphold, in order to protect human lives and property as well as the treasured natural resources present there.