Huge fire near Lake Tahoe slows; weather improves
Better weather has slowed the growth of the huge California wildfire near Lake Tahoe resort communities, authorities said Friday.
The Caldor Fire remained only a few miles from the city of South Lake Tahoe, which was emptied of 22,000 residents days ago, along with casinos and shops across the state line in Nevada, but no significant fire activity occurred since Thursday, officials said.
Tim Ernst, an operations section chief, said fire officials were cautiously optimistic thanks to “a lot of hard work” by firefighters over the past two weeks.
The nearly 333-square-mile fire was not making any significant advances and was not challenging containment lines in long sections of its perimeter, but Ernst said “the risk is still out there” with some areas that remained hot.
Crews were restoring utility services, knocking down hazardous trees and putting out smoldering hot spots to prepare certain areas for repopulation, but the timeline for allowing residents back to their homes remains unclear, said Capt. Parker Wilbourn, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“At this point, we don’t know. We’re doing everything we can to mop up the fire and clean up areas that need to be cleaned up,” Wilbourn said.
The fire had been driven northeast on a course leading to South Lake Tahoe for days by southwestern winds, but that pattern ended this week. Calmer winds and increased humidity Thursday and Friday helped crews increase containment of the blaze to 29%.
“Very positive trends with regards to weather,” said Dean Gould, a U.S. Forest Service administrator. “That’s huge for us. Let’s take full advantage of it while we have this window.”
With the fire growing at the smallest rate in two weeks, he said, “Things are clearly heading in the right direction for us.”
Amid the positive outlook, incident meteorologist Jim Dudley warned that the air mass in the Sierra Nevada drains downslope every night and then sloshes upslope during the day and that the region’s terrain of ridges and deep canyons can create winds that go in “squirrely directions.”
“Just because we don’t have red flag wind conditions across the fire, the wind threat is still there and it’s all localized,” he warned.
The fire – which began Aug. 14, was named after the road where it started and raged through densely forested, craggy areas – was still considered a threat to more than 30,000 homes, businesses and other buildings ranging from cabins to ski resorts.
Residents who were forced to flee South Lake Tahoe earlier this week remained evacuated along with people across the state line in Douglas County, Nevada.
The resort area can easily accommodate 100,000 people on a busy weekend but was eerily empty just before the Labor Day weekend. The wildfire dealt a major blow to an economy that heavily depends on tourism.
“It’s a big hit for our local businesses and the workers who rely on a steady income to pay rent and put food on their table,” said Devin Middlebrook, mayor pro-tem of South Lake Tahoe.