Caldor Fire Friday night: Containment 19 percent as 145,463 acres burn; New evacuation orders for California
Submitted by Kelsey Penrose on Sat, 08/28/2021 - 10:51am
"We're doing everything we can so the fire doesn't make it into Tahoe," said Calfire incident commander Eric Schwab during Friday's community meeting.
During the meeting, Schwab said the Caldor Fire hasn't made it into Strawberry and contingency dozer lines are now going through Strawberry Canyon south down to SR88.
Multiple resources have been at Strawberry for several days doing structure prep and making buildings more survivable should fire make it there. That includes creating a 30-foot clearing around homes by moving firewood away from house and sweeping off pine needles. if they have time they make that a 100-foot clearing. Sometimes fire is used to make the defensive line.
Strawberry Creek is the planned furthest eastern point, officials said.
As of Friday night, the Caldor Fire has burned 145,463 acres and is 19 percent contained, with seven percent gained during the day. The containment is all on the western side of the fire.
The fire remained the most active throughout the day on the Northeast area along Highway 50 and in the area of Sierra Springs on the Western side of the incident.
Low relative humidity and up-canyon winds increased spotting and fire runs in the North, Northeastern and Eastern areas of the incident. Critical fuel conditions, steep and rugged terrain still present a challenge for firefighters. Additionally, widespread smoke and inversion conditions prevailed though most of the day increasing challenges for the fire crews
Making this fire a "difficult one" are the multiple drainages areas within the fire circumference, and much of the area is extremely dry and overgrown due to lack of fire. A lot of the fuel in the region has not seen fire for 80 years if not longer.
The big player in the fire this weekend will be the weather. The next two-to-three days will see relatively light winds, but even those will get strong and gusty at the west and east ends of the fire. The diverse and complex landscape in the area sees terrain-driven winds as well as upper level winds. The landscape will generate its own winds, depending on how much sunlight it gets. As landscape heats up, the winds want to go up the canyons and then as it cools, the winds work their way back, the Caldor Fire meteorologist explained.
He said Saturday will be a cookie cutter of today with an inversion layer to keep all the heat and smoke down, then as the days warms up there will be increased fire activity.
Sunday may be a Red Flag Warning day on the west slope of the Sierra, but it hasn't been determined yet. As the terrain drives winds this weekend, the upper level winds will move up and down the deep drainages. This action picks up hot material and carries it. There was spotting up to one-half mile on Friday with some of that in the Strawberry area.
Air support wasn't able to play a big role for most of the day due to poor visibility early on. They need "clean air" to conduct missions.
New evacuation orders
New evacuation orders have been issued tonight for the Pleasant Valley area. Pleasant Valley is south of Camino, northeast of Somerset:
Evacuation Routes:
• Residents evacuating the area should exit Westbound on Pleasant Valley Road or Northwest on Bucks Bar Road.
Evacuation Order:
• Pleasant Valley Road and all intersecting roads extending south from Newtown Road to the intersection of E-16 (Mt Aukum Road).
• All roads accessed from E-16 (Mt Aukum Road) between Pleasant Valley Road and Bucks Bar Road.
• This includes all roads and residences accessed from Moon-Shadow and Gopher Hole Road off Bucks Bar Road.
NOTES:
This Evacuation Order does not include the residences off Pleasant Valley Road West of Newtown Road to include Pleasant Valley Middle School, Michael Way, and all roads to Four Seasons Road. Please go to: www.tinyurl.com/EDSOEVAC for an online evacuation map.
The Numbers
Size: 145,463
Containment: 19%
Structures Threatened: 18,347
Single Residences Threatened: 16,896
Multiple residences Threatened: 931
Businesses Threatened: 520
Structures Damaged: 37
Single Residences Destroyed: 469
Commercial Properties Destroyed: 11
Other Minor Structures Destroyed: 170
Evacuated: 34,311
Estimated incident costs to date: $50,892,394
Personnel on the fire: 3,173
Engines: 269
Water tenders: 74
Helicopters: 25
Handcrews: 79
Dozers: 70
Other: 6
