“That there would just be this massive fire that would sweep around the entire lake.”Ī wildfire probably won’t swallow the basin whole, in one large race around the lake, according to the fire models that Kolden ran. “I think people had this idea in their heads that it would be like, you know, when you flush the toilet and it goes around the bowl,” Kolden said. Kolden, a pyrogeographer who now works at UC Merced, did some modeling to see how a fire might behave inside the Tahoe basin. Caldor Fire enters the Tahoe BasinĪround 2006, Crystal A.

And Monday, the Caldor Fire did the same when it breached Echo Summit. Cal Fire Chief Thom Porter said the Dixie Fire was the first to run across the crest. Now, two fires have achieved that grim milestone, both in the past month. This fire has been spotting like crazy.”īefore this summer, no wildfire in California’s recorded history had ever run up and over the crest of the Sierra Nevada. The vegetation is much more receptive to spottings. “The Fire is burning at a high intensity, and by that I literally mean it’s burning with a higher temperature. “It’s the character of the fire that’s really important,” Swain said. And now it’s threatening the homes of tens of thousands of people who live in Meyers and South Lake Tahoe. All of that added up has manifested a wildfire as ferocious and difficult to contain as the Caldor Fire. It’s the shorter winters and longer fire seasons. Swain said that extremely dry, hot weather and changes in climate have been priming the forest for wildfire for months, or even years. “What is unheard of is the degree of vegetation dryness going into this summer and the amount of heat we’ve had previously this summer.” But the winds that pushed the Caldor Fire into Lake Tahoe haven’t been on par with the excessive and overwhelming wind events that have accompanied California’s most infamous and severe wildfires, like the 2018 Camp Fire. Steep terrain has also complicated fire-suppression efforts. The day-to-day weather forecast has been challenging for firefighters, he noted. Southwesterly winds blowing 35 mph, with gusts up to 40 or 50 mph, pushed the fire into the Lake Tahoe basin.īut the reasons why the Caldor Fire is burning so intensely are more complex, Swain said. Winds are also influencing the Caldor Fire, and what the wind does in the next 36 hours will likely determine the fate of South Lake Tahoe. “It’s those two things together that are modifying the background burning conditions,” Swain said.

“These terms are no longer appropriate, given the clear trends associated with drought, a changing climate and unresilient forest stands.”ĭaniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, said the Caldor Fire’s intensity is equally the product of the climate crisis and a century of fire suppression. “Historically, we’ve used terms such as ‘anomaly,’ ‘unprecedented’ or ‘extreme’ to describe the wildfires we have seen burn throughout the state over the past 10 to 20 years,” said Chris Anthony, who represented Cal Fire at a briefing on the Caldor Fire on Monday, standing in front of South Lake Tahoe Airport. The fire is 16% contained, as of Tuesday. But then the winds flared up and took back some of the progress firefighters had made. Cal Fire reported 19% containment on the Caldor Fire going into last weekend.

Since then, several thousand firefighters have arrived, along with engines, bulldozers and helicopters, and yet containment has evaded fire crews. Miraculously, as of Tuesday morning, it seemed as if the fire had spared many homes in Christmas Valley and Meyers, even though walls of flames are burning on both sides of the valley.Īgain and again, fire scientists have commented on the extreme and unprecedented behavior on display in the Caldor Fire, which was elevated last week to the No. Flames hop-scotched ahead and jumped over Highway 89, starting another spot fire that has since raced northeast, into the Lake Tahoe Basin. As the fire ran down the valley, erupting in the crowns of giant trees, embers flew as far as a three-quarters of a mile downwind. Thousands of local residents live in the neighborhoods of Christmas Valley and Meyers, though evacuation orders had already vacated people from the area. The Caldor Fire spilled off the edge of Echo Summit, casting embers into communities that lie on the perimeter of the Lake Tahoe basin.

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