South Lake Tahoe, CA (AP) — Sunday’s surge in temperatures and strong winds adds to the challenges faced by firefighters fighting fire throughout Northern California, including firefighters marching towards the Lake Tahoe resort area. rice field.
“It will be the hottest day ever since the fire broke out. Unfortunately, it’s probably the driest day,” said Isaac Lake, a spokesman for Caldor Fire two weeks ago.
Thick smoke crowded tourists as the flames shook the mountains a few miles southwest of the Tahoe Basin and the summer vacation was in full swing ahead of Labor Day’s weekend.
According to Lake, triple-digit temperatures could occur and extreme heat was expected to last for several days. On Mondays and Tuesdays, severe fire warnings were issued at high altitudes in northern Sierra.
Crew members working on rugged terrain scrambled to extinguish spot fires caused by irregular winds.
“It’s so dry that if the embers are blown to an unburned fuel bed, there’s a 90 percent chance of ignition,” Lake said.
The flames that broke out on August 14 were 19% contained after burning nearly 245 square miles (635 square kilometers), which is larger than Chicago. Over 600 structures have been destroyed and at least 18,000 have been threatened.
The Caldor Fire turned out to be very difficult to fight, so the fire chief postponed the scheduled full containment date from early this week to September 8. But even that estimate was sparse.
Meanwhile, California’s second-largest 1,193 square miles (3,089 square kilometers) of Dixie fires were 48% contained in the Sierra Cascade area about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of the Caldor fire. Of the approximately 1,300 buildings destroyed since the fire broke out in early July, there were nearly 700 homes.
Containment increased to 22% in a French fire on day 12 that covered more than 38 square miles (98 square kilometers) in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains. The crew protected a forest home on the west side of Lake Isabella, a popular recreation area northeast of Bakersfield.
In Southern California, remote communities were ordered to evacuate when a wildfire broke out on Saturday and spread rapidly throughout the Cleveland National Forest. According to the California Forest Fire Department, firefighters were slightly injured and two structures were destroyed in a 2.3-square-mile (5.9-square-kilometer) chaparral fire burning along the border between San Diego and Riverside counties. Sunday was included 10%.
More than 15,200 firefighters across California are fighting more than 12 large-scale fires. The flames destroyed about 2,000 buildings and forced thousands of people to evacuate this year, covering the wide western belt with unhealthy smoke.
The California fire is in almost 90 large flames in the United States. Many are in the west, burning trees and brushes that have been dried by drought. According to scientists, climate change will continue to make the region warmer, drier, more extreme weather and more destructive wildfires over the last three decades.
The Pentagon is sending equipment from Washington, including 200 U.S. soldiers and eight U.S. Air Force C-130 aircraft, to assist firefighters in Northern California, the U.S. Army North said in a statement on Saturday. Said in. The soldiers will arrive in California in early September after a week of training. The C-130 has been converted into an air tanker that can dump thousands of gallons of water into flames.