New evacuations warnings for Coffee Pot Fire after one month of burn

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Officials have issued new evacuation warnings overnight as the Coffee Pot fire has burned more than 11,000 acres in Tulare County.

Some portions of Sequoia National Park are now closed as the fire sits at 13% containment.

"Two of the closures that are going to affect visitation are in the Mineral King area and also on South Fork Road," Holly Brown with the National Park Service said.

Mineral King is in a remote part of the park, and fire crews are now focusing on the area.

"All the way up into Mineral King, the fire got very active at the end of shift yesterday," Operations Section Chief Nick Cleary with the California Interagency Incident Management Team said in a video update posted to YouTube on Monday.

More than 1,300 personnel are now battling to gain control of the fire, nearly one month after it started in a lightning strike.

Cal Fire is using a Super Huey to fight the fire from above.

It has a 'helitorch,' a device used to ignite vegetation as firefighters try to hold containment lines.

The Coffee Pot Fire is causing some haze in the sky near Three Rivers.

But even as the fire continues to burn, officials say the wind is blowing some of the smoke away from the Valley floor.

"Folks in Mineral King and then on the other side of the Sierra Nevada are starting to see the impacts, but those of us here on the Valley floor - fewer impacts and less need to worry about air quality, at least today," Jaime Holt at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District said.

Holt cautioned that the winds could change in the days ahead.

The fire is still an active scene, even as officials say they are making some progress.

"Following South Fork Road, everything's looking really good," Cleary said in the video update.

"Probably one more day of patrol. We did change the evacuation order to a warning, so residents are starting to get back in there."

For a more detailed look at the evacuation warnings and more, click here.

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