Tearing across the bone-dry landscape of the El Dorado National Forest at unfathomable speeds, California’s Caldor Fire near Lake Tahoe exploded in size from 6,500 acres Tuesday morning to 53,772 acres Wednesday morning with no containment.
The fire started on August 14, between OmoRanch and Grizzley Flats, a small town of about 1,200 residents. On Monday, August 16, the fire had grown to 6,500 acres. By the 17th, high winds caused the fire to explode, expanding rapidly north and east, crossing the North Fork Cosumnes River and approaching Sky Park Reservoir.
As the fire expanded, it tore through Grizzley Flats, incinerating everything in its path. At least two people with serious injuries were airlifted to hospitals from the Grizzly Flats area and about 22,000 residents have been forced to evacuate, according to Nexus Media News.
Derek Shaves and Tracy Jackson were helping their friend salvage food and other supplies from the Grizzly Pub & Grub, a business in the evacuation zone that wasn’t touched by the blaze, reports The Guardian.
Shaves said he had just visited Grizzly Flats and saw his home and most of the houses in his neighborhood had been destroyed by the fire. “It’s a pile of ash,” he said. “Everybody on my block is a pile of ash and every block that I visited, but for five separate homes that were safe, was totally devastated.”
At the Walt Tyler Elementary School in Grizzley Flats, the only thing left was the remains of a metal structure, missing the plastic slide that had melted away.
Tuesday evening, Cal Fire incident commander Dusty Martin at a briefing, said, “We are still active in a major firefight,” reports the Sacramento Bee. The fire was growing so rapidly, Cal Fire apologized on its Facebook page for not having a map of the fire zone available.
Martin added that the multiple fires burning in California were making it difficult to bring enough personnel and equipment to the region. “We are all competing for the same precious resources.”
All the large fires in California were active yesterday. In addition to the Caldor Fire, the Dixie Fire made another significant run of nearly 48,000 acres. Fires in Oregon and Washington remained active yesterday as well.
The fires in California come on top of two dozen burning in Montana and nearly 50 more in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, according to the National Fire Interagency Center.
And the statistics are sobering. Climate change has made the region warmer and drier in the past 30 years, and so far this year, as of August 18, 2021, the U.S. has recorded 40,848 wildfires – compared with 37,098 for the same time period in 2020.
This year, as of August 18, 2021, a total of 4,296,943 acres have burned, compared to 2,623,190 acres for the same time period last year.
