00:36 Worst Air Quality in America May Surprise You The park remains closed indefinitely as air quality levels become comparable to those of smoggy, polluted Beijing.

At a Glance Yosemite National Park air quality is worse than anywhere in America.

Officials have closed a large swath of the park indefinitely.

This is Yosemite’s longest and most extensive closure since 1997, when floods shut the park for two months.

Yosemite National Park is shrouded in so much smoke from wildfires that the air quality is worse than anywhere in America and is rivaling Beijing, prompting officials to extend the park closures indefinitely.

"The fire activity inside Yosemite National Park is dynamic," officials posted on the park's website Sunday afternoon. "Over the past 48 hours, fire has impacted all of the roads used to access Yosemite Valley, burning dead and downed trees that can become very explosive and fall without warning. There are also significant terrain hazards for firefighters."

Yosemite Valley and other areas of the park – El Portal Road, Wawona Road, Big Oak Flat Road, Glacier Point, the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, the Merced Grove of Giant Sequoias, Wawona Campground, Crane Flat Campground and Tamarack Campground – closed July 25.

Officials had hoped to reopen the park Monday, said park spokesman Scott Gediman, who added that any decision to reopen will be based on air quality, visibility, weather patterns and safety for firefighters who are performing protective measures known as back burning near the park’s southwestern border.

Not all of the park is closed; roughly the northern third of Yosemite has remained open. But officials say it is Yosemite’s longest and most extensive closure since 1997, when floods shut the park for two months.

With Yosemite’s highlights off-limits, other nearby National Parks are getting a surge of visitors.

(MORE: The Latest on the California Wildfires )

Coming at the height of the summer season, the closure has dealt a financial blow to Yosemite, a crown jewel of the National Park System, and caused upheaval for thousands of tourists whose summer trips have been abruptly canceled.

“I’m totally gutted we can’t visit Yosemite,” said British tourist Caroline Lansell, on a summer holiday to California with her husband and two children.

Like many, they booked nearly a year ahead of time to secure a coveted hotel room inside the park, where hotels and campsites fill up months in advance and are typically booked through October.

“It was going to be our first and probably only time because it’s such a long, long way to come,” said Lansell. “I fancied doing the meadows, the lakes and the massive cliffs. It’s really sad. But at least we’re alive. There are people who have lost their lives and homes.”

<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://dsx.weather.com/util/image/w/yosemitesmoke.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0" srcset="https://dsx.weather.com/util/image/w/yosemitesmoke.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 400w, https://dsx.weather.com/util/image/w/yosemitesmoke.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 800w" > Yosemite Valley, shrouded in smoke from nearby fires, will remind closed indefinitely. (NPS)

The 115-square mile fire near Yosemite started on July 13 and is now 41 percent contained. It is one of several large wildfires that fire crews are battling in California, where record-breaking heat and years of drought have turned immense tracts of forests and parched grasslands into tinder boxes. Overall, six people have died in the blazes and thousands have had to evacuate their homes.

In recent days, the fire reached into remote areas of Yosemite, which is about 250 miles from San Francisco. The park ordered about 200 workers who live in Yosemite’s popular Valley region to leave Friday because of inaccessible roads.



Gediman, the park spokesman, estimates a financial loss of several million dollars for the park, its hotels and gateway communities that rely on summer tourists for business. The precise figure will be calculated after the park reopens.

“It’s a huge impact,” Gediman said. On a typical summer day, anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 visitors enter the park, which charges $20 for an individual pass, $35 for a vehicle pass and up to $300 for a commercial coach.

“This time of year the campgrounds would be full and the lodging would be full,” he said. Since the closure, at least 1,000 campground and hotel bookings have been canceled each day, he said, describing the 7.5-mile-long (12-kilometer-long) Yosemite Valley as “empty” except for smoke.

Yosemite Valley is the centerpiece of the visitor experience, offering sweeping views of its majestic landmarks such as Half Dome, Bridal Veil Fall, El Capitan and Yosemite Falls.

Most of those have been obscured by a choking haze for days, although shifting winds means the pollution levels and visual clarity changes throughout the day, said Pete Lahm, air resource specialist for the U.S. Forest Service, which is running the Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program. Yosemite officials are referring visitors to the program’s website to check pollution levels.