while swarms of gnats and flies swooped down from the fire’s edge, suggesting that even the bugs were leaving town.
Wildland fires can typically burn up to about 1,500 degrees, Kolden said, while structure fires can burn closer to 3,600.Residents in the basin were tracking the fire’s movement for days, with many hunkering down with air purifiers to mitigate yellow-gray smoke. Some said they were concerned that a mass evacuation would lead to chaos, as much of Highway 50 is closed and there aren’t many roads out of Tahoe.as residents fled east into Nevada and were caught in an hours-long traffic jam.
The granite ridge that overlooks the Tahoe basin could have some mitigating effects on the fire, officials said. Unlike lower elevations populated by hot-burning manzanita brush, ponderosa pine and cedar trees, the ridge is characterized by fir trees and more spare, open areas that can help slow the fire’s spread.Caldor fire spokesman Jason Hunter said the fire had been spotting — or generating wind-blown sparks, which can create new fires — at half-mile distances in recent days.
Concern about the potential for disaster is mounting far beyond Tahoe’s typically emerald shores. The fire’s advance has alarmed President Biden’s administration, which has otherwise been preoccupied by“We are tracking the wildfires,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at Monday’s press briefing. She added, “We will continue to assess if additional resources are needed.”
In addition, the National Interagency Fire Center has requested that about 200 active-duty U.S. Army soldiers be deployed to serve as firefighting hand crews. They were scheduled to be trained over the next week and sent to fire lines in Northern California in early September, the fire center said in a news release.Chief Thom Porter, of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said that before this year, no fire was known to have burned from one side of the Sierra to the other.
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