Firefighters are continually making headway in fighting the Rim Fire on the outskirts of Yosemite National Park: On Saturday, they had contained 40 percent of the blaze, which has now charred a total of 222,777 acres of forest.
It also now has the dubious distinction of being California's 4th largest wildfire in state history, according to CAL FIRE.
For the first time since the fire started near Yosemite two weeks ago, the smoke has reached the Valley and the most popular tourist destinations there. NBC Bay Area talked to people in the Valley who said the smoke is so thick, they cannot even see Yosemite's Half Dome.
NBC Bay Area has learned the heavy smoke has forced fire officials to ground all firefighting aircraft because of the low visibility.
Increasingly confident fire officials said they expect to fully surround the blaze in three weeks, although it will burn for much longer than that.
Some of the nearly 5,000 firefighters, including strike teams from San Francisco and Mountain View, returned home this weekend after spending days on the fire lines.
MORE: Rim Fire Incident Command Page
The Rim Fire fire has been raging in the heart of the Stanislaus National Forest since Aug. 17, and investigators said they may know what may have sparked the massive blaze.
Investigators said Marijuana growers could be to blame. A Tuolumne County Fire official told community members that investigators are looking into that possibility.
A total of 5,500 structures still remained threatened, and so far, 111 buildings were damaged - 11 of them were homes, despite earlier reports that 31 homes had burned. Nearly 5,000 firefighters have now been called in to battle the blaze.
As of Friday, several evacuations orders, including one for Tuolumne City, had been lifted. But Yosemite National Park - which has remained open during the entirety of the fire - had closed Tamarack Flat and Yosemite Creek Campgrounds.
The biggest loss was the complete destruction of Berkeley Tuolumne Camp, a family camp run by the city of Berkeley since 1922. Friends of the camp set up a Facebook page to collect old photos of good times at the camp. As of Thursday, the Berkeley Tuolumne Family Camp Photo Memorial had 1,732 friends.
The other camps in the area, including San Jose Family Camp, San Francisco's Camp Mather and Camp Tawonga were evacuated safely shortly after the fire broke out.
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Check out an interactive map via Esri.com.
Photo Credit: Getty Images