Tough summer for Yosemite National Park

The two minors died around 5 a.m.in Upper Pines Campground in Yosemite Valley when an oak tree limb fell on their tent.

A U.S. Forest Service survey released in May estimated that more than 12 million trees in California national forests, and in Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon national parks, had died during the four-year drought, the Los Angeles Times reported. Authorities expect to release information Wednesday.

The plague has struck again in California’s Yosemite National Park, forcing officials to close their second campground in less than two weeks. In 2012, a camper was killed due to a tree limb falling on his tent during a strong wind storm.

From Monday noon to Friday noon, the Tuolumne Meadows Campground will remain closed so that the authorities can use flea killing insecticides to treat the area.

Visitor reservations were canceled at the 304-site campground, the DOH told the AP. Crane Flat Campground, which was closed after the incident, has since been reopened.

A child fell ill with the plague after camping with his family at Yosemite’s Crane Flat Campground in mid-July.

” The message to campers at Yosemite and all of our wilderness areas is to stay away from rodents and their burrows”, Kramer said. The child is now recovering from the disease.

Plague is carried by rodents and small mammals and is spread by fleas that jump from rodents to people. In California, there have been 42 human cases of plague since 1970, including nine fatalities. A park spokesman said the teens were on a camping vacation with family.

Early symptoms of the plague are similar to the common flu – high fever, nausea, headaches, chills, weakness, and swollen lymph node glands around the neck, armpit, or groin. It can be easily treated with regular antibiotics right after infection is diagnosed, but it can get deadly if the patient is left untreated or the treatment is delayed.

The state Health Department director Dr. Karen Smith said while it is a rare disease, along with a low risk to humans, it would still be best to protect people from such ailment by eliminating the fleas.