Children Camping at Yosemite Killed by Falling Tree Branch

The park called it an “extremely precautionary public health measure”.

“Fallen branches like this one are a common occurrence across the park”, he said.

The 304 sites at Tuolumne Meadows Campground in Yosemite National Park will be closed next week Monday through Friday after authorities confirmed they found the bodies of two plague-infected squirrels.

The case marked the first time a human was known to be infected with the centuries-old scourge, which is carried by rodents and the fleas that live on them, in California since 2006.

A child from Los Angeles County was diagnosed with the plague after camping with his family at Yosemite’s Crane Flat Campground, around 27km north-west of Yosemite Valley, in July.

“Human cases of plague are rare, with the last reported human infection in California occurring in 2006”, California Public Health Director Karen Smith said in a statement. The child was sent to a hospital for treatment and is now recuperating. As a result, the Crane Flat Campground has been closed for four nights to allow for rodent burrows to be treated for fleas.

No other companions have shown symptoms, but health officials are still monitoring people who might have been exposed. About 4 million people go there each year, making it America’s third most visited national park.

Two tourists were killed and nine were injured in 1985 when a 25-foot oak branch fell 15 feet onto an open-air tram carrying 50 passengers.

A pair of young campers lost their lives Friday morning after a tree limb fell from a nearby oak tree and struck the tent where they were sleeping.

In 2012, a Yosemite concession employee, Ryan Hiller, 27, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, died when his tent cabin was hit by a falling limb. It nearly sounded like a gunshot when it came down.