The Caldor Fire’s gallop toward South Lake Tahoe eased throughout the day Wednesday, with the fire still swelling to nearly 208,000 acres but containment also increasing to 23 percent.
caldor fire
Areas of Douglas County along Lake Tahoe are now under a mandatory evacuation order as the Caldor Fire continues to approach Nevada.
Perhaps more than with other wildfires in the Western U.S., this one resonates the world over. Lake Tahoe is an international destination, a glorious wedding backdrop, a sparkling jewel in John Muir’s Range of Light.
The Caldor Fire was 3 miles outside of South Lake Tahoe on Tuesday, officials said. The National Weather Service warned that weather conditions Wednesday would include wind gusts up to 30 mph.
By nightfall, all residents on the California side of the Lake Tahoe Basin were warned to evacuate the region.
The Caldor Fire churned through mountains just southwest of the Tahoe Basin, cloaking much of the area in toxic smoke and sending tourists packing.
Firefighters battling a stubborn California wildfire Friday near the Lake Tahoe resort region faced gusty winds and dry conditions that made vegetation ready to burn.
South Lake Tahoe and Tahoe City on the west shore had the nation’s worst air pollution at midmorning Wednesday, reaching 334, in the “hazardous” category of the 0-500 Air Quality Index.
The Caldor Fire erupted over the course of a week into the nation’s No. 1 firefighting priority and was “knocking on the door” of Lake Tahoe, said Thom Porter, California’s state fire chief.
More than 13,500 firefighters were working Monday to contain a dozen large California wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and forced thousands of people to flee to safety.
California has already surpassed the acreage burned at this point last year, which ended up setting the record. Now it’s entering a period when powerful winds have often driven the deadliest blazes.
An estimated 11,000 firefighters were on the lines of more than a dozen large wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings.
The newest inferno, the Caldor Fire, continued to grow explosively in the Sierra Nevada southwest of Lake Tahoe, covering 84 square miles after suddenly ravaging Grizzly Flats, a community of about 1,200.
Firefighters faced dangerously windy weather Tuesday as they struggled to keep the nation’s largest wildfire from advancing toward a Northern California city.