Caldor Fire grows slowly near Lake Tahoe
Air quality continues to worsen as firefighters race to contain the blaze before winds arrive
The Caldor Fire grew only a few thousand acres Tuesday amid gentler winds and lower temperatures, a welcome change for firefighters who warned at the start of the week that flames could soon reach the Lake Tahoe area.
The wildfire burning in El Dorado County now covers 117,704 acres, but has yet to make a significant run toward the Lake
Tahoe basin and remained about 15 miles southwest of the Echo Lake area on Tuesday, according to Cal Fire spokesman Capt. Keith Wade.
But with higher temperatures and winds forecasted for the next two days, more than 2,000 firefighters were racing to strengthen containment lines along the northeastern and southern flanks of the blaze, chopping away at dead vegetation and carpeting homes with pink fire retardant dropped from air tankers.
Speaking from Cal Fire’s base camp in Placerville, Wade said that crews anticipated the fire becoming “a lot more active than it has been.”
“There’s multiple fronts on this fire, with the way the weather’s going today,” he added.
Crews were clustered roughly around three hotspots, Wade said, including homes in the
community of Pollock Pines to the northwest, the northeastern stretch of Highway 50 leading up to South Lake Tahoe and a southwestern pocket of land near Omo Ranch Road.
A nearly 50-mile stretch of Highway 50 from Sly Park Road to Meyers has been closed since Friday, over concerns that spot fires and smoke could endanger drivers. A Caltrans spokesman said Tuesday there was no estimate of when the road — California’s main artery into and out of South Lake Tahoe — may reopen.
Air quality in the Lake Tahoe Area is now the worst in the nation, with so much smoke pollution along parts of the western shore that fine particulate matter topped 500 — typically the highest rankig on the AirNow scale. Sacramento and the Bay Area reported healthy to moderate air quality.
But over the fire itself, a smoke inversion layer that had quelled the fire’s spread overnight was mostly gone by Tuesday, Wade said, allowing for sunlight and wind to fan the flames again.
Through today, wind gusts of about 20-30 mph are forecast to swirl over the region, said National Weather Service meteorologist Emily Heller. Temperatures hovered in the low 70s mid-80s and were expected to climb slowly through the end of the week.
With winds reversing course, the fire could travel back toward the southwest, in the opposite direction of Tahoe, Heller said — a positive development for crews desperate to protect the Highway 50 corridor. But fresh breezes could stir up trouble for the southern portion of the fire.
“Any winds are going to exacerbate every fire,” Heller said.
Steep canyons and thick, overgrown brush — coupled with a lack of moisture from years of drought — have made spot fires a particularly fearsome source of spread for California wildfires this year. Late Saturday, high winds allowed a spot fire to jump over Highway 50 north of the town of Kyburz and quickly take hold in rocky terrain.
To the north, the Dixie Fire burning in five counties has charred about 731,310 acres since it broke out nearly six weeks ago, an increase of about 5,000 acres overnight.
The fire is 41% contained.
Overall, more than 14,000 firefighters — which includes federal, state, local and tribal crews — are assigned to 12 different blazes statewide. About 1.6 million acres have burned so far this fire season — an area bigger than the Grand Canyon.
The Caldor fire broke out
Aug. 14 and is now about 9% contained. On Monday, a top Cal Fire official said that it had become the nation’s “number-one priority” to funnel more crews and equipment.
Wade could not estimate how many new resources might be deployed to the fire in the coming days, but said that about 3,000 people total — about 1,000 more than those currently assigned to the fire — was a reasonable expectation for a fire of this size.
“We’re feeling good about it, but we’re going to be here for a while,” Wade said.