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We've been up at the Ridge in Stateline/South Lake Tahoe since Friday the 16th. I'm writing this as an update for anyone scheduled to visit South Tahoe in the next few days or weeks, in case you've heard about it and are wondering about its impacts.
Lightning ignited a tree in a somewhat remote area of the Mokelumne Wilderness a bit south of Markleeville on that Friday. The forest service sent out a tweet that day roughly saying that it was in an area surrounded by granite and not heavily forested right there and thus not a danger to spread or threaten structures, so they decided that for safety reasons, as they put it, not to send in a crew to put it out.
Well, within a day it had extended to 6,600 acres, to 23,000 acres the next day, and to 40,000 acres by today, with virtually no containment yet.
It has mostly burned to the north and east, threatening (and perhaps by now burning) Markleeville, some other small hamlets around highway 89, and forest area. It also began spreading north and west yesterday apparently, and the Blue Lakes road has been evacuated as a precaution. Part of highway 89 between Hwy 88 and 4 is closed now, and the fire looks like it has crept closer to Hope Valley and Blue Lakes, though hasn't reached there yet. This area is a fantastically beautiful recreational paradise, and along with the towns at threat, the fact that they ignored and underplayed this fire at first is infuriating.
Here's a state map where the fire extent can be seen when zoomed in:
In terms of the impact to the timeshare areas of South Lake and Stateline, so far it has not been all that bad. Smoke moved in on Sunday, but moved out Monday has mostly stayed down in the Carson Valley where it looks pretty thick. With a shift of the wind, it could come back in, but so far it is fairly light. The biggest issue is hoping that they can get a handle on the fire soon and stop it from growing - it's still a good ways from South Lake, but they need to build some good perimeters soon to halt its progress, is what it looks like to me.
From what I can see, the smoke has not crept up the east or west side of the lake much if at all, nor reached the north end. Will be going up north today for a day trip and will check that out further.
Lightning ignited a tree in a somewhat remote area of the Mokelumne Wilderness a bit south of Markleeville on that Friday. The forest service sent out a tweet that day roughly saying that it was in an area surrounded by granite and not heavily forested right there and thus not a danger to spread or threaten structures, so they decided that for safety reasons, as they put it, not to send in a crew to put it out.
Well, within a day it had extended to 6,600 acres, to 23,000 acres the next day, and to 40,000 acres by today, with virtually no containment yet.
It has mostly burned to the north and east, threatening (and perhaps by now burning) Markleeville, some other small hamlets around highway 89, and forest area. It also began spreading north and west yesterday apparently, and the Blue Lakes road has been evacuated as a precaution. Part of highway 89 between Hwy 88 and 4 is closed now, and the fire looks like it has crept closer to Hope Valley and Blue Lakes, though hasn't reached there yet. This area is a fantastically beautiful recreational paradise, and along with the towns at threat, the fact that they ignored and underplayed this fire at first is infuriating.
Here's a state map where the fire extent can be seen when zoomed in:
In terms of the impact to the timeshare areas of South Lake and Stateline, so far it has not been all that bad. Smoke moved in on Sunday, but moved out Monday has mostly stayed down in the Carson Valley where it looks pretty thick. With a shift of the wind, it could come back in, but so far it is fairly light. The biggest issue is hoping that they can get a handle on the fire soon and stop it from growing - it's still a good ways from South Lake, but they need to build some good perimeters soon to halt its progress, is what it looks like to me.
From what I can see, the smoke has not crept up the east or west side of the lake much if at all, nor reached the north end. Will be going up north today for a day trip and will check that out further.