Firefighters facing the Caldor fire now have priority over available resources, as the fire has become “the country’s number one fire right now in terms of risk-taking values priorities,” according to the supervisor of the national forest of El Dorado, Jeff Marsolais. Burning just 11 miles southwest of the Lake Tahoe area, local officials said they were concerned about the spread of the fire.
“This fire has simply overwhelmed us,” Marsolais said Tuesday night at a community briefing. “We emptied the closets and the local fire chiefs in Amador and El Dorado counties sent all the resources they could, and no matter how many people we had, we continued to outdo ourselves.”
From Wednesday morning, the Fire Heat has burned 126,182 acres and owns only 11%, Cal Fire reports. The massive fire has already damaged 461 homes, 34 structures, 11 commercial properties and 165 smaller structures, with more than 17,000 structures still on their way. The cause of the fire is still being investigated. Firefighters plan to contain it completely by Aug. 31.
“[This is] it’s still a very big fire that we’ll still have a lot of work to do, ”said Mike Blankenheim, head of the Cal Fire Amador-El Dorado unit.
Fire behavior in the area has fluctuated since it began Aug. 14, Marsolais said. A change in the wind pattern on Tuesday evening reduced fire activity to allow fire crews to strengthen and improve certain control lines, Cal Fire said. However, the agency reported occasional fires in the southwest and northeast of the gunpowder and around its perimeter.
Officials said stopping the spread of the fire in the east is a “huge priority.”
“We put all the resources available there,” Blankenheim said.
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On Monday, Chief Thom Porter said the Heat Fire “knocked on the door of Lake Tahoe Basin.”
The smoke from the fire has caused air quality in some areas of the basin to be designated as dangerous – the highest level of concern at the scale of the air quality index. Officials have advised residents of polluted areas to stay indoors and be informed about air quality and the evolution of forest fires.
And while current evacuation orders issued to thousands of residents do not include residents of Lake Tahoe, officials said they will monitor the area and issue warnings in the basin in case evacuations are ordered between Twin Bridges and Echo Summit. .
“We’ll be involved in this until the end,” said Brad Zlendick, Lake Valley fire chief. “That will end too. We’ll get it.”