The Caldor Fire continues its relentless march eastward and northeastward. The latest on #Firemappers shows the fire has crossed route 89 and is now pushing into the Carson Range. Many homes and cabins are threatened and there was a mass exodus from South Lake Tahoe yesterday when evacuation orders were issued. You can add Heavenly to the list of ski areas threatened.
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| Source: Firemappers, 8 am MDT 31 Aug 2021 |
To the south, Kirkwood is now under direct threat.
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| Source: Firemappers, 8 am MDT 31 Aug 2021 |
My son and I ski toured a closed Kirkwood with a dwindling snowpack on May 9th. It's a beautiful area and we were very impressed by the trees. Enough so to take the photo below.
I have no strong connection to the area other than that day, which was the first time I had been through Carson Pass. I am hoping for a miracle for everyone and the forests effected.
Meanwhile to the north, the monstrous Dixie Fire has now surpassed 800,000 acres burned, including a significant fraction of Lassen National Park. The map below provides some perspective.
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| Source: Firemappers, 8 am MDT 31 Aug 2021 |
According to fire.ca.gov, Dixie is the 2nd largest wildfire in California history, behind only the August Complex last year at 1,032,648 acres.
Snow can't come soon enough this fall.
I see they were using snow making equipment at Sierra-at-Tahoe to fight the flames. (https://gizmodo.com/surreal-photos-show-the-fierce-battle-against-caldor-fi-1847586021) I hope Kirkwood is spared - I spent a lot of time there in the early 80s. Those were the El Nino years when there was so much snow, the chair lifts hit the ground on the way up.
ReplyDeleteCarson Pass has amazing wildflowers around the 4th of July its not as heavily forested as the other Lake Tahoe Passes its a mixture of granite meadows and forest. Kirkwood is one of the higher Tahoe ski areas and has deep good quality snow, the winter snowline is typically 4,000 to 5,000 ft and there is a huge amount of snow above 6,500 ft. On the highest north facing slopes around Kirkwood small snow patches typicall survive until AUG or SEPT. My high school had a ski team and I remeber many races at Kirkwood, I really hope they can save it. Running the snow guns did wonders at Sierra AT Tahoe all the lifts, lodges and more than half the forest survived. I also hope Heavenly ski area survives. Heavenly has some of the best views in the tahoe area, the lake on one side and the Nevada Desert on the other side. Being high up on an alpine slope looking down into the desert is surreal.
ReplyDeleteWill these fires eventually die off as they continue their march east? Or will they slowly spread north and south along the range until the moisture comes?
ReplyDeleteEven more remarkable is that the August Complex was technically several fires that merged together (Doe, Tatham, Glade, and Hull fires), hence complex. On the other hand, the Dixie Fire is one continuously growing fire. The next largest non-complex fire for CA is the Creek Fire from 2020 (350,000 acres). Not sure if nature cares about such classifications, but interesting nonetheless. I wonder if these fires will simply die off, not from rain or fire suppression, but because they will simply run out of fuels when they run into the Nevada desert.
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