(CN) — Another wildfire has broken out in Northern California, adding to what is swiftly becoming a dreadful fire season for mountain residents. And voluminous amounts of smoke pouring into the San Francisco Bay Area means coastal Californians are not immune from the ravages of large fires burning throughout the state.
The Caldor Fire sparked sometime over the weekend in El Dorado County, about 50 miles west of Lake Tahoe. But it exploded in size Monday evening, growing to approximately 6,500 acres.
"Night firefighting and challenging terrain made accessing the fire difficult," the El Dorado Sheriff's Office said in a statement. "The fire burned very actively throughout the night."
Evacuation orders have been issued for the small mountain town of Grizzly Flats and areas around Pollock Pines, a foothills town of about 6,800.
The U.S. Forest Service said that some structures have already been lost but did not provide a number. A red flag warning for the area went into effect Tuesday and will extend through Wednesday evening, with wind gusts of up to 35 miles per hour expected.
There are currently 11 major fires burning in California, including the Dixie Fire, which razed the town of Greenville and has burned upwards of 570,000 acres since it sparked in mid-July. The fire has grown to the second-largest in state history.
California is not the state with the most blazes at present, however, as Montana has 27 major fires burning within its borders and Idaho has 22. Nineteen fires are tearing across Washington state, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
In all, 104 major active fires are burning in 11 western states. But the Dixie Fire, which continues to spew voluminous amounts of smoke affecting millions of residents throughout Northern California, remains the largest.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued a warning Tuesday that air quality conditions will likely worsen as the prevailing direction of the wind shifts Tuesday night.
“Onshore winds are expected to shift to strong north/northeast winds in the Sacramento Valley, pushing smoke into the Bay Area,” the agency said in a release. “Smoke impacts are forecast to be more widespread than last week.”
Due to the wind shift, PG&E reiterated Tuesday that it will "likely" shut off power to thousands of customers in 18 counties throughout Northern California.
PG&E has told regulators its equipment likely sparked the Dixie Fire, though it denies flying drones that prevented a quick response. A fir tree falling on lines may have also caused the Fly Fire, which eventually merged with the Dixie Fire to create the second-largest wildland blaze in recorded state history.
The fire center reports there have been about 40,000 fires in the West this year, burning about 4.7 million acres, well ahead of the pace of 2019, one of the worst fire seasons on record. But the pace also lags behind fire seasons in 2017 and 2018.
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