The Rim Fire began with a small, illegal campfire in a remote canyon and grew into the third-largest blaze in California history. Its scale transformed the surrounding landscape, while the smoke reached Linda May’s campground and marked the end of her summer near Yosemite.

Ignition in the Canyon

In mid-August, a solitary bow hunter was seeking deer in the Clavey River Canyon of Stanislaus National Forest, about fifty miles west of Junction Campground. Investigators believe he built a small campfire from twigs and pine needles, despite a fire ban. He used it to heat soup and burn garbage from his backpack. Embers blew into the dry brush, turning this isolated act into the start of a major wildfire.

A Fire on a Vast Scale

Over the next two months, the Rim Fire incinerated an area more than seventeen times the size of Manhattan. The account identifies it as the third-largest blaze in California history, a distinction that conveys the distance between its modest point of ignition and its enormous eventual reach. The canyon’s dry vegetation carried the fire far beyond the hunter’s small campfire.

Smoke and Linda’s Departure

By September, smoke was thickening the air at Linda’s campground near Yosemite. It was time for her to move on: she said her good-byes and drove north to Fernley to join Amazon CamperForce, the second workamping job she had applied for. The narrative places her departure amid the fire’s spreading effects without claiming that the blaze alone caused her to leave. The Rim Fire’s consequences enter her story first as a changed atmosphere at the campground, where smoke accompanies the end of her summer.