With 465 homes, and 178 other structures already destroyed, the Caldor Fire near the California-Nevada border had grown to 136,000 acres (55,000 hectares)—partly because the state couldn’t mobilize enough fire crews or equipment to fight it.
By Wednesday, Wildfire Today reports, the blaze had reached a point 12 to 14 miles southwest of Lake Tahoe, after adding about 10,000 acres in just a day. “The weather forecast for Thursday predicts 7 to 8 mile-per-hour winds out of the southwest and northwest with relative humidity in the teens. Friday will be about the same but with lower humidity. These conditions will allow the fire to keep spreading.”
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The latest report had the state combatting the Caldor Fire with 243 fire engines, 27 water tenders, 21 helicopters, 80 hand crews, and 51 dozers, and 2,897 firefighters. On Monday, the incident management team for the fire published a list of areas that could be threatened over the next couple of days—including Silver Lake, Kit Carson, Plasse, Kirkwood, Twin Bridges, Sierra-at-Tahoe, Caples Lake, and the Lake Tahoe Basin.
It laid out a series of “critical resource needs” to support firefighting activities, Wildfire Today says, “including 330 engines, 60 hand crews, 17 Division Supervisors, and 40 other overhead personnel.”
On Thursday morning, the Sacramento Bee reported new evacuations in the area.
“The Caldor Fire ignited August 14, exploding in size and mostly destroying the town of Grizzly Flats in its first few days,” the paper states. “The fire prompted urgent evacuations up through the Pollock Pines, Sly Park and Kyburz area. The fire has spread more slowly but very steadily this week toward the northeast.”
