SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif.–This mountain resort city now appears likely to survive the much-feared approach of the Caldor Fire, as the leading edge of the blaze pushed Tuesday into more remote terrain.
There has been no reported structural damage in the Christmas Valley that leads to the city of 22,000 despite two days of high winds, leading exhausted firefighters to express relief that residential neighborhoods seem likely to be spared.
“When I came in this morning, I expected to see burnt-down houses, and I did not find any,” said Dave Lauchner, spokesman for an incident-management team and battalion chief with the Sacramento Fire Department.
The Caldor Fire had burned 204,390 acres and was 20%-contained as of Wednesday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. A red-flag warning, indicating hot, dry weather and gusty winds that could accelerate the spread of wildfire, is in place through Wednesday evening.
Mr. Lauchner and hundreds of other firefighters spent the day Tuesday chasing the storm of embers thrown off by the fire as it advanced into the populated valley and put them out before they could ignite new blazes.
The success in that work could be seen along two of the major highways in Christmas Valley, where several miles of pine forest remained intact other than the blackened earth where crews extinguished ember fires before they spread far.
“Right now, it looks pretty clean,” Capt. Nick De La Torre of the Alameda County Fire Department said as his crew used hoses and hand tools to put out a spot fire that flared up toward Highway 50.
Embers rocketing as far as a mile in front of a blaze have become a hallmark of the new era of climate-fueled megafires that have ravaged the West, wildfire researchers say. As a result, firefighters at the Caldor and other large fires have made it a priority to extinguish the stray embers as fast as they can.
With much of the region evacuated by Monday, South Lake Tahoe and adjoining Stateline, Nev., resembled ghost towns late Tuesday, with virtually no one around other than first responders and media. Evacuation orders were issued for some communities in Douglas County in Nevada on Tuesday afternoon.
The fight to keep two popular ski resorts in the area from ruin as flames approached has also been successful to date.
Around the Kirkwood Mountain Resort, fire remains a major concern, said Tim Ernst, Cal Fire’s operations section chief. “The fire is currently hung up right on the ridge outside of Kirkwood, so that’s something we will be looking at as one of our priorities,” Mr. Ernst said at a news briefing on Wednesday morning.
“It’s a very stressful situation watching the fires just advance toward Kirkwood and toward the Tahoe Basin,” said Chris Dobel, 54 years old, whose family has owned a condominium near the ski resort since the late 1980s.
Mr. Dobel said firefighters have been doing a good job suppressing the fire or, at least, moving the fire in a different direction and protecting homes. “They’re true heroes, and we are very grateful,” said Mr. Dobel.
At Sierra at Tahoe, another area ski resort, snow machines were blowing water vapor toward ski lodges and other structures to prevent the buildings from catching fire.
In some cases, though, terrain was so rugged that firefighters stood by, ready to respond if a small blaze started to grow. Along Highway 50 Tuesday evening, Mr. Lauchner’s team sat in their fire engine and watched as flames cracked and popped in the brush and small trees on the other side of a rushing stream.
“So, instead of wasting our efforts over there, we allow it to come to us and we can control it,” he said, as fire trucks rumbled by under skies still shrouded in yellowish smoke.
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