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The Yosemite Firefall was a summer time event that began in 1872 and continued for almost a century, in which burning hot embers were spilled from the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park to the valley 3,000 feet (900 m) below. From a distance it appeared as a glowing waterfall. The owners of the Glacier Point Hotel conducted the firefall. History has it that David Curry, founder of Camp Curry, would stand at the base of the fall, and yell "Let the fire fall," each night as a signal to start pushing the embers over. The Firefalls were performed at 9 p.m. seven nights a week as the final act of a performance at Camp Curry.

The Firefall ended in January 1968, when George B. Hartzog, then the director of the National Park Service, ordered it to stop because the overwhelming number of visitors that it attracted trampled the meadows, and because it was not a natural event. The NPS wanted to preserve the valley, returning it to its natural state. The Glacier Point Hotel was destroyed by fire 18 months later and was not rebuilt.

The spectacle of the Yosemite Firefall has evolved into a natural spectacle observed annually. Unlike the original man-made Firefall event, the modern-day phenomenon is a captivating interplay of nature's elements that occurs every February, replicating the appearance of a fiery waterfall without the use of actual fire​ in Horsetail Fall (Yosemite). Today's Firefall occurs at Horsetail Fall on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, where the setting sun illuminates the waterfall, casting a warm, fiery glow that resembles a cascade of fire.

Nineteenth-century origins[edit]
In 1871, before Yosemite became a National Park, an Irish immigrant named James McCauley hired John Conway to build the Four Mile Trail from Yosemite Valley, where McCauley lived, to Glacier Point. When the trail was completed, McCauley built a small hotel called the Glacier Point Mountain House. McCauley and his wife Barbara operated the hotel during the summer months. In 1883, James McCauley sent for his niece, Elizabeth McCauley, to come from Ireland and help with the hotel.

McCauley's son Fred had an apple orchard just outside the park. His twin brother John told Ranger-Naturalist Bob Fry in 1961 that the Firefalls began spontaneously one day. James McCauley often made a large campfire for his guests on the point of the granite cliff that jutted out over the valley. All would sit around the fire and talk. At the end of the evening, McCauley would kick the glowing coals over the edge of the cliff. People in the valley were fascinated by the falling embers and mentioned it to McCauley's sons. Some visitors gave them money, saying things like "Here's two bits. Tell your father to have another firefall tonight." The sons decided this was a way to earn a little money. They gathered wood for a larger fire, carrying it up the mountain on their burros. James McCauley tied a gunny sack to a long pole and dipped in "coal oil". He would light the sack and wave it as a signal that the Firefall was about to begin. Then he would kick over the campfire coals and spectators would watch from below as the coals fell. The park placed a warning sign which read:


 * It is 3,000 feet to the bottom
 * And no undertaker to meet you
 * TAKE NO CHANCES
 * There is a difference
 * Between bravery and just plain
 * ORDINARY FOOLISHNESS

In 1897, the Washburn brothers, who owned the Wawona Hotel, had the Guardian of the State Grant evict James McCauley and took over his hotel at Glacier Point. They stopped the Firefalls.

The following year, McCauley bought John Lembert's homestead in Tuolumne Meadows and ran cattle there. He and his sons built a small cabin on the property at Tuolumne Meadows; today the "McCauley Cabin" houses park personnel. The McCauley family sold it to the Sierra Club in 1912, and the Sierra Club sold it to the National Park Service in 1973.