RENO, Nev. (CN) — Firefighters clawed back some containment of the Caldor Fire burning south of Lake Tahoe even as thousands of evacuees remain barred from their homes and the blaze churns into Nevada.
As of Thursday evening, the blaze had burned through over 210,000 acres and is 27% contained, according to updates from Cal Fire. Firefighters had reached 20% containment over the weekend before dry air, high temperatures and vexing winds sent the fire surging closer to South Lake Tahoe. Containment of the fire dropped on Sunday and Monday, triggering an arduous firefight to regain the progress lost and evacuation orders and warning for thousands of residents.
Under a hazy sky blanched by wildfire smoke, an American Red Cross shelter at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center in Reno took in evacuees from communities on both sides of the California-Nevada border. People of all ages, from families with small children to seniors, stood inside the glass doors of the convention center checking in for a safe place to stay.
Members of the media were not allowed to enter the shelter, but American Red Cross spokesperson Kim Mailes said in an interview that the number of evacuees seeking shelter “fluctuates by the hour.”
Mailes said approximately 900 people were being housed in shelters throughout the area and that the American Red Cross had been providing shelter to wildfire evacuees for much of the summer.
“Since June, we’ve provided about 13,000 overnight stays,” Mailes said. Before operating at the Reno shelter, Mailes said he worked at the shelters in El Dorado County that opened just over a week ago. “Most all of the residents have been there since [the shelters opened] and probably will be for another week or two. Many times it turns into a two, three week deal.”
The shelters maintain masking requirements and screen for Covid-19, according to Mailes. If someone has Covid-19, the American Red Cross has arranged for isolation shelters.
The shelters will remain open “in consultation with county emergency management,” Mailes said, and evacuees will be given 48 hours’ notice should a shelter be shut down.
“If someone comes to a Red Cross shelter, they will find shelter,” Mailes said. “We will either open a new one or we will immediately transfer them to the one nearest their home.”
The Caldor Fire has destroyed an estimated 649 residences as of Thursday, an increase of more than 150 since Tuesday morning. Over 32,000 structures remain threatened, though Cal Fire reports no fatalities thus far and no additional injuries beyond five previously reported.
On Wednesday and Thursday, officials downgraded some of the evacuation orders in parts of El Dorado County on the west side of the fire’s perimeter. The eastern front of the blaze remains the focus of concern as it advances toward the Nevada border.
As for the firefight, officials said they were working to further bolster containment.
“Calmer winds and return of moderate humidity to some areas of the fire reduced activity overnight,” Cal Fire’s Thursday morning update said. “Fire spread still occurred along the northern edge of the fire. Firefighters will work today to bolster lines where large pockets of previously unburned fuel threaten existing control lines.”
Currently over 4,400 personnel are working to extinguish the blaze. President Joe Biden signed an emergency declaration for California on Wednesday to free up federal aid in response to the wildfires, which are among the worst in California’s history.
To the north of the Caldor Fire the Dixie Fire — now California’s second largest wildfire in recorded history — has been raging for more than 50 days. As of Thursday evening, it had blackened more than 865,000 acres, destroyed more than 1,200 structures and was 55% contained.
“The official line from Cal Fire, from local fire agencies, from ecologists, from fire scientists and even more casual observers [is that] the fires we're seeing right now in California are behaving very differently than their historical counterparts,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, in an interview this week. “A lot of the rules of thumb and rules of safety engagement, even for firefighters on the line, really no longer apply.”
Swain said a confluence of climate change, drought and misguided fire suppression policies in the 20th century has helped fuel one of California’s worst wildfire seasons on record.
“I think that's just a testament to the extremity of the background conditions, both from a climate change and drought context,” Swain said. “And there just isn't a lot of recent fire history in these areas because we excluded it for so long. Those two big things are really coming back to bite us right now.”
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