Colossal wildfire plumes that can be spotted from space have erupted on several California wildfires in the past months.

The Mosquito Fire burning in Placer and El Dorado counties produced torrents of smoke that soared tens of thousands of feet into the air. The cloud of soot and debris could be seen 60 miles away. Smoke from the blaze blanketed large swaths of Northern California and western Nevada, resulting in hazardous-level air quality.

Wildfire plumes in the western US are reaching greater heights than ever, a recent study reports — especially in California’s Sierra Nevada.

“The higher the plume reaches, the more likely it is to be transported rapidly over large distances,” said David Peterson, a meteorologist with the US Naval Research Laboratory-Monterey who was not part of the new study.

That means smoke, carrying a hodgepodge of chemical compounds, wafts farther distances and impacts more people. Wildfire smoke can irritate lungs and even cause wider health issues, especially for vulnerable populations like older adults, children and those with underlying health conditions.

A pyrocumulonimbus cloud from mosquito fire as seen from the air of a commercial airline flight over Sacramento, September 8, 2022. Video: Courtesy Gregory Van Acker

“Once these particles enter our bloodstream they can pretty much affect our entire bodies,” said Rosana Aguilera Becker, an environmental health scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

The study, out of the University of Utah, used mathematical models to simulate plume heights for about 4.6 million wildfires. The analyzes examined burned areas detected by satellite in the western US and Canada from 2003 through 2020, during August and September. The researchers found that over those years, plume top heights increased hundreds of feet across much of the mountainous western US

But not all areas saw the same amount of growth.

“Sierra Nevada definitely stands out,” said study author John Lin, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah. In the Sierra, the researchers found that plumes grew about an additional 750 feet per year. On wildfires like the Mosquito, that’s meant intense plumes have soared to some 40,000 feet.

Firefighters watch a smoke column from a distance during the Mosquito Fire in unincorporated Placer County.

Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

Other regions, like the Southern Rockies and Eastern Cascades, increased by over 300 feet per year.

This upward trend increased even more after 2015, although the results weren’t statistically significant.

This uptick in plume top height was accompanied by increases in wildfire emissions that cause poor air quality, especially in the Sierra Nevada region. As the plumes explode in height, smoke can surge above the planetary boundary layer, the layer of the atmosphere closest to the ground.

You’ve encountered this boundary any time you’ve been on a plane descending to land.

“If you’re going into SFO, you probably are familiar with the times when it suddenly gets really rocky,” Lin said, “That’s a pretty good indication of where the (planetary boundary layer) starts.”

Smoke that makes it to these altitudes — about 3,000 feet above the ground — disperses more readily due to strong winds.

The researchers propose that the increase in wildfire plume height is due in part to climate change: Drier conditions and warmer temperatures enable fires at higher elevations. This vertical shift gives wildfire plumes a head start toward sending smoke particles higher into the atmosphere, above the planetary boundary layer.

Some plumes make it even farther, past the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere. These are pyrocumulonimbus clouds, also known as pyroCbs.

“A pyroCb generally reaches the typical cruising altitudes of jet aircraft and beyond,” Peterson said. “So we’re talking 30,000 feet or higher.”

PyroCbs are similar in appearance to thunderstorm-producing cumulonimbus clouds: puffy and towering. A recent example is the immense plume produced by the Mosquito Fire, which soared to heights observed from airspace.

These clouds act like chimneys, funneling smoke up into the stratosphere.

“It’s a thunderstorm that’s ingesting smoke at the cloud base,” Peterson said. “And then it gets accelerated through that thunderstorm cloud and ejected through the top of it.”

The researchers identified increasing pyroCb activity within the Colorado Plateau over the study period. They also found a slight uptick in pyroCbs in the Sierra Nevada in recent years. Additional research is needed to get a clear picture of what’s happening with these extreme plumes, which are still a developing research area.

What is known, however, is that smoke that makes it to these altitudes can linger for months and spread over vast distances, potentially causing health issues for many.

“There is a great concern that wildfires will be — and are already — a major source of air pollution,” Aguilera Becker said.

Jack Lee (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jack.lee@sfchronicle.com

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Community Development Research Briefs

Author(s): Brooke Lappe, Emory University and Jason Vargo, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Download the full report (pdf, 1.35 mb)

Executive Summary

Wildfires, which are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity, are measurably affecting vulnerable populations, labor, housing, and education. This report describes how wildfire smoke disrupts various sectors of the economy across the United States. Wildfire smoke is a growing problem for groups that face greater economic barriers than the general population, such as low-income families, housing-vulnerable communities, and frontline workers.

Key Takeaways

• In the past decade, most Americans have experienced statistically significant increases in days of light, medium, and heavy wildfire smoke and decreases in smoke-free days.
• Increases in the number of days of smoke were greatest for the most dense, dangerous, and disruptive category of smoke.
• Avoiding wildfire smoke exposures is likely worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year to Americans.
• Increases in wildfire smoke are occurring in the nation’s most vulnerable communities, with disproportionate increases for minority populations and those with limited English proficiency.
• Frontline workers (here referring to those workers in outdoor occupations and often without indoor air filtration) are increasingly experiencing exposure to wildfire smoke. Smoke will continue to increase the risk of occupational hazards, decrease productivity, and cause worker disruptions in industries that depend on these workers. Adapting to these changing conditions will result in additional costs for businesses, consumers, and governments.
• Wildfires have increased heavy smoke exposures for young children and students in poverty. This could have impacts on early childhood and K‒12 education, such as disruptions in learning, poor academic outcomes, and increased food insecurity.
• Housing-vulnerable communities are experiencing an increase in heavy smoke days, especially in the high-cost regions of the West (The Federal Reserve’s Twelfth District). Wildfires are likely to pressure the housing sector by increasing housing costs and disproportionately impacting housing for vulnerable communities who live in housing types (older units, rental units, etc.) that are less likely to access protective adaptations.
• Dramatic increases in disruptive smoke overlap with eligibility for existing financing programs that could help build resilience to smoke-related damages. Programs that target low- and moderate-income communities and communities of color may have outsized importance in building broad economic resilience to climate risks.

Research Motivations and Methodology

Wildfire Smoke Health Effects

The health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure are not uniformly distributed across regions and populations. Certain populations, such as lower-income, children or older adults, medically compromised individuals or those who cannot avoid exposure, are especially vulnerable to smoke-induced health effects. Wildfire smoke exposure is associated with asthma exacerbations, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, respiratory infections, myocardial infarction, ischemic heart disease, heart failure, dysrhythmia, pulmonary embolism, ischemic stroke, transient ischemic attack, out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, and all-cause mortality (Reid et al. 2016; Heaney et al. 2022; Wettstein et al. 2018). Such health outcomes as cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular emergency department visits have been linked specifically to heavy-density smoke exposure, which has increased the most in the past decade (Wettstein et al. 2018). Previous research has shown that the negative health effects of prescribed fire smoke are more pronounced in children born to black and Hispanic mothers, as well as children of low-income mothers (Jones and Berrens 2021). Our findings suggest that individuals who are experiencing increased exposures might also live in communities with limited resources to reduce the impacts of the exposures.

Descriptive analyses were conducted on the presence of wildfire smoke plumes and their overlap with population centers to describe the magnitude of and trends in wildfire smoke affecting communities across the United States in 2011–2021. These data on census tract–level wildfire smoke exposures were combined with information on specific populations to characterize wildfire smoke exposures across different socioeconomic groups.

To describe recent trends in wildfire smoke, a comparison of estimates in the earliest five years (2011–2015) to those of the latest five years (2017–2021) of the 11-year study period was conducted. Using census tract aggregations of the daily smoke data, the mean annual days of smoke were calculated and then used to statistically test changes in frequency of wildfire smoke plumes across the study period. In each analysis, census tract estimates of person-days or number of smoke-days are used as the basis for central tendency estimates within the county or SVI (Social Vulnerability Index) tertile. All analyses were performed using R Statistical Software (R Core Team 2021).

Wildfire Smoke Exposures

To obtain community-level exposure to wildfire smoke, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hazard Mapping System (HMS) smoke dataset were combined with population data from the 2010 U.S. Census. HMS data use satellite-detected fires with multiple daily satellite images and a combination of analyst examination and automated processing to record smoke plumes of categorical densities across North America. Satellite imagery that detects smoke plumes can reliably identify periods of wildland fire influence on ground-level measurements of air quality from validated monitors. Plume densities reported in HMS data correlate with PM2.5 concentrations, with concentrations <10 µg/m3 categorized as light, 10–21 µg/m3 as medium, and >21 µg/m3 as heavy.i

To estimate the sizes of populations potentially impacted by light, medium, and heavy wildfire smoke plumes between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2021, smoke plume data and 2010 census block group centers of population were linked. Daily smoke density categories were assigned to populations in each block group if a smoke plume from any time in the day contained the block group population center. The spatial intersection of HMS plumes and population centers is detailed in Vargo 2020. Block group populations were held constant at 2010 levels to quantify the impact of changes in wildfire smoke regimes and disentangle them from population shifts over the course of the decade. Populations under each smoke category were considered for each day. The resulting quantity, person-days, is the product of the number of people in a census block group or tract and the number of days that block group experiences smoke. Person-days by smoke density and smoke-free person-days were then aggregated across geographies and time periods for our analyses.

After quantifying and describing general trends in wildfire smoke since 2011, the same data are combined with information on specific populations of interest to better understand who is most affected by wildfire exposures and how those communities might be prioritized for climate-resilient community development.

What is a person-day?

Throughout the report, person-days are used to capture, together, the number of people and the amount of time spent under smoke plumes. When a smoke plume is observed over a population center, each person who lives there is considered to have experienced one smoke day. Suppose 500 people live in a population center; each time a plume is over it, 500 person-days of smoke would be tallied. This measure can be adapted to consider communities of concern—for example, to count frontline worker—days, student-days, or household-days of smoke.

A person-day is a useful metric specifically because it incorporates people into descriptions of air quality. It helps to give an accounting of the potential impact of smoke by capturing the number of people and the amount of time people may have been exposed. Person-days assign exposures at fine scale but allow for versatile aggregation and comparison of exposures for different geographies and time periods.

Populations of Concern

There are several community dimensions of interest relevant to understanding wildfire smoke exposure and the resulting economic impacts. The characteristics of people or a community (e.g., age, race, health status, income, occupation), social inequalities (e.g., social capital, political power, lack of access to information), place-based inequalities (e.g., rural versus urban, elevation), and adaptation inequalities all impact a population’s susceptibility to disaster events and their resulting exposures (Cutter, Boruff. and Shirley 2003). Although wildfire smoke events affect entire populations together, their impacts are shaped by the population’s susceptibility and its adaptive capacity. This report’s findings suggest that increases in smoke are occurring in communities with high vulnerability in the labor, housing, and education sectors. Communities with fewer economic resources may face more barriers in avoiding exposures during a wildfire smoke event (Murphy et al. 2015). However, this overlap of vulnerability and growing exposure suggests that interventions that target at-risk communities may more efficiently reduce smoke exposure, potential health impacts, and social and economic losses associated with wildfires. This report is not exhaustive in its description of populations of concern. Considering other marginalized populations, such as indigenous communities, is important for improving understanding of the impacts of wildfire smoke.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s SVI data were used to investigate populations of concern for wildfire smoke and evaluate characteristics that might affect the health risks of wildfire smoke exposures. All analyses were performed using the 2018 versionii of the SVI data at the census tract scale. Daily person-days of wildfire smoke at the block group level were aggregated to annual census tract aggregates and linked with 2018 SVI percentile rankings of four themes: (1) socioeconomic status, (2) race/ethnicity/language, (3) household composition and disability, and (4) housing/transportation. Estimates of person-days and number of smoke-days for each smoke density were calculated using national tertiles of the overall SVI theme and the four component themes. The tertile with the lowest SVI scores is referred to as having the greatest health/social “advantage,” and the tertile with the highest SVI scores is referred to as having the greatest health/social “disadvantage.” The assignment of tertiles using the census tract file (rather than other aggregations of SVI data) ensures that each tertile has roughly the same number of people. Additionally, specific components of the SVI (e.g., the number of persons without a high school diploma) were considered to examine changes in wildfire smoke among specific populations over the study period.

Frontline Workers

Wildfires have uneven impacts across the labor force and especially affect those who work outdoors or in indoor situations lacking adequate air conditioning or ventilation. Wildfire smoke impacts among these workers, referred to here as frontline workers, are expected to be greater than for other workers. Frontline workers are often paid lower wages, especially workers involved in food production and preparation or the movement and distribution of goods. These workers are also disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities. Migrant workers are also overrepresented in many of these frontline occupations, especially farmworkers and construction workers (Thomason and Bernhardt 2020). As a result of structural inequities, frontline workers have underlying health risks, low socioeconomic status, and reduced health-care access, which increases their overall vulnerability to wildfire smoke (Schenker et al. 2015). Frontline workers face increased occupational hazards, such as smoke-related health effects and exacerbated health vulnerabilities (Zhou et al. 2021), decreased productivity, and a greater likelihood of work disruptions and instability. As wildfire smoke increases hazards for these workers and disrupts productivity, the national economy suffers.

The contribution of industries to state labor forces and GDPs (gross domestic product), the percentage of workers considered frontline, and how frontline workers’ exposure to smoke changed from 2011–2015 to 2017–2021 were used to quantify smoke exposures in the labor force. The American Community Survey (ACS) five-year data from 2019 were used to enumerate frontline workers or those more likely to work outdoors and less likely to be able to mitigate their smoke exposures. Using estimates for variables included within the group C24050: Industry by Occupation for the Civilian Employed Population 16 Years and Over, the contribution of frontline industries to local labor forces and exposures among frontline workers were assessed. Among the 13 industries captured within the ACS group, frontline workers included in two occupations (“Natural resources, construction, and maintenance” and “Production, transportation, and material moving”) were counted as frontline workers and used with smoke days to arrive at frontline worker-days of smoke exposure. Four industries in the ACS variable with a majority of workers in frontline occupations were given special consideration: “Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining”, “Construction”, “Manufacturing”, and “Transportation and warehousing, and utilities”. State-specific GDP information was collected from the Bureau of Economic Analysis Table (SAGDP2N Gross domestic product by state) for year 2020.iii

School-Aged Children

The negative impacts on air quality make children a population of concern for wildfire smoke exposures. The development of the brain and organs throughout childhood and adolescence makes pollution potentially more damaging to children’s health, with much more long-lasting permanent effects, compared to adults (WHO 2005). Air pollution can decrease cognition and lead to poorer educational outcomes in the long term (Shier et al. 2019; Miller and Hui 2022). The economic impacts of childhood air pollution exposures can also impact near- and long-term school facilities and district budgets (Li and Jimenez 2022). A study of California schools from 2002–2003 through 2018–2019 found that wildfires related to nearly two-thirds of the school closure days and more than 70% of missed student-days over the 17 years (Miller and Hui 2022). Moreover, the study found significant negative impacts on academic performance among younger students. Another recent study found that the presence of wildfire smoke decreased students’ test scores, particularly for younger grades and disadvantaged districts. The impacts of one year, 2016, were projected to result in lost future earnings of more than $1.5 billion (Wen and Burke 2022).

Outside the classroom, school closures disrupt resources and services, such as meals and child care, and, as a result, students face increased risk of food insecurity and poor academic outcomes. Child-care providers and school districts with smaller budgets that serve disadvantaged communities could be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of wildfires because they often have greater needs and fewer resources available to address such issues. Parents are more likely to miss work to meet unexpected child-care needs, and households in low- and middle-income communities and communities of color are less likely to have reliable and affordable child-care options available to them (Harknett, Schneider, and Luhr 2022; Shrimali 2020). Additionally, child care disproportionately falls on low- and middle-income women and women of color, widening existing inequities (Shrimali 2020).

To estimate the impact of wildfire smoke on economically disadvantaged students, we used the ACS 2019 five-year estimates for the number of K–4 students enrolled in school and below the poverty line (variable group B14006) to calculate student-days of heavy smoke.

Housing-Vulnerable People and People Experiencing Homelessness

Affordable and safe housing is an important factor in dealing with many climate risks, as well as a commodity that is also threatened by climate risks. Homes are places of refuge from outdoor elements, such as wildfire smoke, and at the same time, fires pressure housing markets through loss of housing stock, limiting where new housing should be built, requiring retrofits, and increasing risks to existing properties. Lower-income residents will face disproportionate impacts due to the legacy of such practices as redlining, which segregated communities of color to neighborhoods that experience hotter temperatures and greater flood risks (Hoffman, Shandas, and Pendleton 2020; Katz 2021). Guidance for coping with wildfire smoke advises individuals to keep indoor air as clean as possible, often by closing windows and doors and running an air conditioner with a clean filter (CDC 2022). Lower-income households are more likely than higher-income households to live in housing that needs repair (Divringi et al. 2019), less likely to buy air filters, less likely to live in homes with air conditioning, and more likely to avoid running air conditioning due to the cost of energy (Hansen et al. 2011; English et al. 2007). Similarly, renters are more likely to be low‑income and thus more likely to rely on landlords to modify their homes to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Housing tenure is particularly important as a proxy for improvements and retrofits being installed, such as HVAC or window/door upgrades to control indoor climate. Few renters are in the position to invest in such improvements, and landlords are reluctant to pursue such investments (Melvin 2018). To consider the smoke exposures among housing-vulnerable households, estimates of renter-occupied households—along with cost-burdened (spending more than 30% of the household’s income on housing), owner-occupied households built prior to 1980—were counted for all U.S. census tracts.

The Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) were used to describe the overlap of smoke exposures with housing conditions that make it more difficult for residents to protect themselves (CHAS Database 2019). CHAS data are generated by HUD from custom tabulations of ACS data and provide estimates at the census tract scale within the range of the smoke record, specifically 2014‒2018. CHAS Table 12 was used to obtain detailed estimates of housing tenure (renter vs. owner-occupied), cost burden, year the structure was built, and household income. The estimates were combined with tract information about wildfire smoke exposure to describe household-days of smoke and changes across the study period.

People experiencing homelessness face a lack of regular shelter, as well as access to information and resources to prepare for and respond to wildfires, which amplify their wildfire smoke and health risk (Every et al. 2014; Gin et al. 2021; Gin et al. 2022). Additionally, many people experiencing homelessness are also working in low-wage, frontline jobs and thus represent a portion of the labor force especially vulnerable to disruptions from smoke exposures.  A 2020 survey of people experiencing homelessness in Portland, Oregon, found that 75% did not receive any information during wildfires and 69% received no type of help during wildfire and smoke events (Hines, Petteni, and Knowlton 2021).  Information on unhoused populations was obtained from HUD’s inventory of Point-in-Time (PiT) Counts assembled as part of the Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (HUD 2021). Information about boundaries of Continuum of Care (CoC) were overlaid with census tracts to calculate the average number of days of smoke experienced by a CoC each year and to arrive at homeless-days of exposure. Although limited in their coverage, the PiT numbers give an idea of where the confluence of people experiencing homelessness and dangerous smoke resides. 

Community Investment Opportunities

Several programs exist to direct investment to the communities where there are concentrations of disadvantaged populations discussed in this report. Given the intersectional nature of many of the factorsiv used to describe those disadvantages, programs targeting low- and moderate-income communities and communities of color can be important for fostering resilience to many climate risks and other social determinants of economic, physical, and mental health. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is one example of legislation intended to ensure regulated banks help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they operate. Specifically, banks are assessed on their record of meeting the credit needs of the entire community they serve, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) also identifies tracts for its Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and those that are in Difficult Development Areas (DDAs) (CHAS Database 2019)—areas with high land, construction, and utility costs relative to the area median income and based on Fair Market Rents (FMRs) and income limits.

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) identifies tracts for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). To be considered CRA-eligible, metropolitan tracts must be identified as low (tract median family income less than 50% of area median family income) or moderate (tract median family income greater than or equal to 50% and less than 80% of area median family income) income, or be identified as nonmetropolitan, middle (tract median family income greater than or equal to 80% and less than 120% of area family median income) income tracts designated by the FFIEC as distressed or underserved.  Using CRA-eligible tract designations from 2020, changes in smoke exposures in qualified tracts were assessed.

Select Figures

The following figures are interactive versions of figures found in the full report.

Please review the related sections of the PDF (linked in each figure caption) for more discussion of the data.

National Trends in Wildfire Smoke, 2011–2021

Annual person-days of smoke exposure, 2011-2021 (billions)

Wildfire smoke exposures of all smoke densities have increased in recent years, with the largest increases in the most dangerous and disruptive category of smoke.

Source: Hazard Mapping System Smoke Product from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For more details and analysis see pages 11-13 in the full report (pdf, 1.33 mb).

Wildfire Smoke Impacts on the Labor Force

Each industry’s share of the state labor force, the percentage of workers considered frontline, and how frontline workers’ exposure to smoke changed from 2011–2015 to 2017–2021.

Table 1. The total labor force, frontline workers, industry-specific workers, and frontline workers for each state are shown below.

Source: American Community Survey (ACS) 2019, Industry by Occupation for the Civilian Employed Population 16 Years and Over; Bureau of Economic Analysis (SAGDP2N); Hazard Mapping System Smoke Product from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For more details and analysis see pages 15-19 in the full report (pdf, 1.33 mb).

Wildfire Smoke Impacts on Children and Schools

Nationally, there were 569 million heavy smoke student-days (grades K–4), with 100 million among students below the poverty line (Figure 5). Between 2011–2015 and 2017–2021, heavy smoke student-days increased 300%.

Figure 5. Student-days of heavy smoke for all K-4 students (light) from 2011 to 2021; student-days for those in poverty (dark)v

Heavy smoke exposures among vulnerable students have increased dramatically in recent years. Younger students (grades K‒4), particularly those in poverty, are most affected academically by school closures.

Source: American Community Survey (ACS) Five-Year Estimates 2019; Poverty Status in the Past 12 Months by School Enrollment by Level of School for the Population Three Years and Over (B14006); Hazard Mapping System Smoke Product from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For more details and analysis see pages 19-20 in the full report (pdf, 1.33 mb).

Download figures (zip file, 14 mb)

Download data (zip file, 29 mb)

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or the Federal Reserve System.

Brooke Lappe

is a doctoral student in the Environmental Health Sciences program at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding the links between climate and health. Prior to joining the doctoral program, Brooke received her Master of Public Health from Emory University, completed a Pathways Internship at the US Environmental Protection Agency, and worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemiology Research and Innovations Branch.

Jason Vargo, PhD

is a senior researcher in Community Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where he focuses on understanding the role of climate risk and equity in ensuring an inclusive and prosperous economy for all. He holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from Georgia Institute of Technology and dual master’s degrees in urban planning and public health from Emory University and Georgia Tech.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to all the colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from community development, the web team, and communications who helped with this report. Additional thanks to Dr. Katie Conlon and Dr. Maria Mirabelli for their partnership in this work, and to the Climate Change and Health Equity Section at the California Department of Public Health.

End Notes

i. Particulate matter (PM) is a measure of air pollution that refers to inhalable particles made up of various chemicals. PM2.5 refers to particles that are generally 2.5 micrometers and smaller (Source: EPA Particulate Matter [PM] Basics).

ii. The 2018 version of the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index is the most recent release at the time of the analysis. It is the case that neighborhood/population characteristics shift over time, such that a neighborhood’s SVI score in 2010 may be different than in 2018. By using the 2018 designations, the analysis highlights where smoke exposure changes over the last decade in neighborhoods that recently rank among the nation’s most vulnerable.

iii. Industry codes “11, 21”, “31-33”, and “22, 48-49” from the SAGDP2N data are used to capture industries with majority frontline workers.

iv. For examples of some of these “social determinants of health,” see the individual indicators of the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index.

v. Reflects only changes in smoke over the study period and not changes to the number of students or students in poverty.

Download PDF (pdf, 1.35 mb)

Article Citation

Lappe, Brooke, and Jason Vargo. 2022. “Disruptions from Wildfire Smoke: Vulnerabilities in Local Economies and Disadvantaged Communities in the U.S.” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Community Development Research Brief 2022-06. doi: 10.24148/cdrb2022-06.

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News // California Wildfires

July 4, 2022Updated: July 4, 2022 6:44 pm

Smoke wafting over the city from a wildfire on San Francisco’s Twin Peaks on July 4th, 2022.

(Photo courtesy of Twitter user @crsy)

A camp fire smell wafted through the air in San Francisco on Monday evening as a wildfire burned on Twin Peaks.

Lt. Jonathan Baxter, a spokesperson with the San Francisco Fire Department, told SFGATE at 6 pm that the fire was still active and had burned about 2 acres, but crews were gaining control.

The blaze sparked near Twin Peaks Boulevard and Panorama and was burning in the dry grasses covering the hillside.

No structures are threatened and no evacuations were needed as of 6 pm

The fire department asked residents of the Twin Peaks neighborhood to close windows and doors to prevent smoke from coming into their homes.

Video footage posted on Citizen showed a large cloud of smoke rising above Twin Peaks.

The cause of the blaze is under investigation, Baxter said.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information is released.

Amy Graff is the news editor for SFGATE. She was born and raised in the Bay Area and got her start in news at the Daily Californian newspaper at UC Berkeley where she majored in English literature. She has been with SFGATE for more than 10 years. You can email her at agraff@sfgate.com.

The post Wildfire on Twin Peaks floods San Francisco with smoke appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

CARMEL (CBS SF) — Winds exceeding 65 miles per hour roared through northern California early Saturday, stoking a wildfire that ripped through the hills in the Palo Colorado Canyon near Big Sur, prompting evacuations and a nearby fire of Geysers Peak in Sonoma County.

Cal Fire said Saturday night the fire burned 1,050 acres, which differed from the original estimate due to better mapping. They said containment grew to 20%.

TO UPDATE: Airstrike, calming winds help firefighters battle wildfire near Big Sur; Containment grows to 25 percent

“The fire adapted to the wind and the terrain, and that gave the fire a lot of energy to make a big run,” said Cecile Juliette, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The National Weather Service issued high wind warnings and advisories throughout Northern California. A warning for the North Bay Mountains was extended until 4 p.m. Saturday. Winds of over 70 mph howled over Mount Diablo and a gust in the Healdsburg Hills was recorded at 96 mph and 94 mph at the nearby Pine Flat Road weather station.

What caused the fire was unclear.

Firefighters said it was unusual for a fire of this size to burn in the winter. They said this is another reminder that California’s fire season is year-round.

“The winds absolutely played a big part in what happened last night. We’ve had wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour,” Juliette said. “Everything is so dry that in the middle of winter this fire could spread really, really quickly.”

The National Weather Service said while Monterey County had a good amount of rain from late October through December, there was no measurable rain in January. They added that the burning area had little if any fire history.

“The timing is quite unique because we don’t generally have a lot of fires in January,” said Dr. Craig Clements, director of the Wildfire Research Center in San Jose State.

“Given that we had no rain at all in January and we had a large offshore wind event, these are the conditions that typically lead to wildfires in the fall, not January. So it’s something that’s quite surprising,” said Dr. Clements.

Although it had rained heavily late last year, Dr. Clements that several years of extreme drought means there is still plenty of dry fuel.

“If we catch our rainfall, our snowpack in the Sierra in February and March, maybe we’ll get back to normal,” said Dr. Clements.

“It no longer makes sense to label fire season as something that only happens three months of the year. It’s been like this year-round in California now and we anticipate it could get worse,” Juliette said.

Cal Fire said people living in fire-prone areas should stay alert due to the constant threat and be ready to evacuate at any time.

The stormy conditions quickly spread the two wildfires. Cal Fire officials reported that crews were responding to a wildfire in Palo Colorado Canyon north of Big Sur around 7:30 p.m. Friday.

The flames spread on hillsides still bone-dry from months of drought. The late December rains had eased due to conditions, but January was extremely dry again.

“Fire has remained stubbornly active overnight,” forecasters for the National Weather Service said. “Images on social media suggest quite surreal fire behavior given the wet October and December observed across the region with multiple atmospheric flow events. Looking at historical fire data, the fire appears to be burning south of Palo Colorado and toward Bixby Creek along Long Ridge in an area with little to no fire history.”

“Anecdotally, it appears that the long-term drought is behaving like a chronic disease, with even the recent rains and cold winter weather not helping to prevent fires from starting.”

Wildfires were a rarity at this time of year.

“It’s unusual to have a fire of this size here on the coast in late January,” Juliette said. “The fact that we had a fire of this size is very worrying.”

By 11:00 p.m., mandatory evacuation orders had been issued and an American Red Cross shelter was set up at Carmel Middle School. Residents quickly fled on streets covered in clouds of burning embers. The flames leapt across Highway 1, burned beneath the famous Bixby Bridge and were visible as far away as the famous Pebble Beach golf courses.

The concrete bridge spans the deep and wild gorge along the highway and has been the backdrop for many automotive commercials, films and television shows, most recently the HBO drama Big Little Lies.

Authorities contacted about 500 residents, urging them to evacuate the sparsely populated area between Carmel and Big Sur. More than 250 firefighters from multiple agencies and volunteer groups, supported by water-repellent aircraft, were able to contain about 20% of the blaze by Saturday night.

“The winds have dropped and that worked in our favor,” said Juliette on Saturday night.

The California Highway Patrol closed Highway 1 at Rio Road just outside of Carmel-by-the-Sea because of the fire. From the south of the fire, Highway 1 was closed at Andrew Molera State Park north of Big Sur.

The area affected by the evacuations was for residents living along Palo Colorado Road from Highway 1 east to the Rocky Creek Bridge and Bixby Creek Road. It was not immediately known how many homes in the rural area were threatened.

See evacuation zone map

“Looking back at last evening, the fire appeared to have started during the strongest offshore winds and very low humidity,” the weather service said. “The strongest offshore winds have now ended near the Colorado Fire. From 3 a.m. the current weather shows relative humidity values ​​of 42-52% with southerly winds around 5 km/h. These light southerly winds represent a possible change that residents and firefighters should keep an eye on today.”

The video showed a wall of flame roaring over the scenic hills as Cal Fire dispatched responders from the faraway Bay Area. Cal Fire’s CZU unit in San Mateo County sent 4 fire engines to help fight the blaze.

Meanwhile, after midnight, a second windswept fire broke out in the hills near Geysers Peak Road. It grew to about 5 acres before firefighters could get the fire under control.

Winds were sweeping through the region at the time of the fire. A gust in the Healdsburg Hills was measured at 96 mph and 94 mph at the nearby Pine Flat Road weather station.

The #GeyserFire over Alexander Valley burns on Geyser Peak on Saturday, driven by 70-80mph offshore winds. Fire is out, unknown acreage. The area has received over a dozen inches of rain this winter and was under a blanket of snow a month ago. @NorthBayNews @NWSBayArea #CAwx pic.twitter.com/zCfGXDIAHw

— Kent Porter (@kentphotos) January 22, 2022

#GeysersFire (Geysers Peak, Sonoma Co) – IC reports 3-5 acres moving south downhill from repeater site, significant winds, slow to moderate rate of propagation. No evacuations required and no obvious signs of power lines. pic.twitter.com/HvpMMCUtiJ

— CA Fire Scanner (@CAFireScanner) January 22, 2022

© Copyright 2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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CARMEL (CBS SF) — Monterey County’s Highway 1 is closed south of Carmel late Friday night due to a fast-moving bushfire fanned by high winds and flames leaping across the road, prompting evacuations in the Palo Colorado region north of led Great Sur.

The California Highway Patrol has closed Highway 1 at Rio Road just outside of Carmel-by-the-Sea because of the fire.

The @PGE4Me webcam at CTRY CLUB HTS in Carmel Valley pointed to the fire continuing along the Big Sur shoreline near Rocky Creek and Palo Colorado Canyon. Please avoid Highway 1 south of Carmel. The humidity is in the teens with gusts around 35 km/h! #CAwx #CAfire pic.twitter.com/EM8dEy2HKg

— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) January 22, 2022

A spokesman for Cal Fire said Friday night that the vegetation fire — dubbed the Colorado Fire — had burned about 25 acres since 10 p.m

The area affected by the evacuations is for residents living along Palo Colorado Road from Highway 1 east to the Rocky Creek Bridge and Bixby Creek Road.

The CHP said the fire was first reported around 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

© Copyright 2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. and Bay City News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, transcribed or redistributed

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Authorities in Northern California announced the arrest of a woman last week who they say sparked windswept wildfire that swiftly tore through steep, rugged terrain, demolishing 144 buildings, triggering the evacuation of thousands and one of the this year destructive fire of the state was.

Alexandra Souverneva, 30, a former San Francisco Bay Area yoga teacher whom a former coworker described as “brilliant” is among more than 100 people arrested by the California Department of Forestry and Fire on charges of arson in the wild Protection or Cal Fire in 2021.

The prosecution alleges a rare but significant act that has come more into focus when parched, overgrown forests explode into thousands of acres in a matter of days.

“It’s hard to pinpoint when a disaster like this doesn’t appear to be a natural disaster, but we have a suspect and this could be an arson case,” Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson said during a community meeting on Saturday.

Souverneva has pleaded not guilty.

Flames devour a home near the Old Oregon Trail when the fawn fire burns about 10 miles north of Redding, California’s Shasta County, on September 23, 2021.Ethan Swope / AP

Forest fires are usually random and ignited by damaged power lines, vehicles and logging equipment, said Ed Nordskog, a longtime arson investigator for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and co-author of Arson Investigation in the Wildlands.

While most forest fire authorities attribute about 10 percent of the fires to arson, Nordskog said the real number could double that – a result of decades of officials prioritizing repression over investigation.

“If you don’t send an investigator, you won’t have arson,” he said.

But deliberately setting a forest fire can have quick and profound consequences. As Nordskog put it, “You literally have the power of an atomic bomb at your fingertips. You can burn an entire city down if the conditions are right.”

For example, in 2006 in Southern California, a wind-powered fire burned 40,000 acres, destroyed dozens of homes and killed five firefighters. Raymond Oyler, a Riverside County mechanic, was sentenced to death for arson and murder in the fire.

In 2008, a former Northern California volunteer firefighter Robert Eason was found guilty of starting a dozen fires north of Sacramento, including one that burned 1,000 acres and killed 200 sheep. Investigators said Eason used a sophisticated time delay device to start the fires.

Unlike urban arsonists, who vary in age, gender, and race, arsonists in the wild are more likely to be middle-aged men, said Nordskog, who also wrote “The Arsonist Profiles: Analyzing Brand Motives and Behavior.” Although lighters and matches are the preferred ignition method, some, like Eason, use time-delay devices, like matches, which are wrapped around a cigarette, he said.

“If they go up in flames, they are seven to 15 kilometers away,” said Nordskog.

Although some arsonists act out of thrill, anger, frustration and mental illness are more common motives, Nordskog said. Just as common is how daunting the investigation can be. They’re often in remote areas, with ignition points that could be decimated if firefighters work to put out the fire, he said.

Fire officials said Souverneva was arrested on the night of September 22 after emerging from the bush near a fire line northeast of Redding in Shasta County. She had a working lighter in her pocket, Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett said Friday, and after telling firefighters that she was dehydrated and needed medical attention, Souverneva was questioned and held in custody on suspicion of arson taken.

Because of the declared state of emergency, Souverneva faces an increased prison sentence of nine years if convicted, Bridgett said. She added that authorities were “aware” of other local and state-wide fires that Souverneva “could be linked to”, although Bridgett refused to provide further details.

Bridgett also declined to discuss a possible motive, saying there was no evidence that Souverneva was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. She also didn’t appear to be mentally ill, Bridgett said, although witnesses who saw her earlier said she acted “irrationally,” Cal Fire said in a statement.

Souverneva pleaded not guilty of arson charges. Her attorney Shana Vegvary said that Souverneva “protests her innocence” and that “no evidence to the contrary has been presented”.

“We ask the public not to anticipate this case,” she said.

Relatives in the Bay Area did not respond to requests for comment. But a former colleague and instructor who taught Souverneva at Avalon Yoga in Palo Alto remembered her as a brilliant student who attended the California Institute of Technology and worked for pharmaceutical companies before she burned out with “big money-grabbing corporations.”

“I thought she was an idealistic kid,” said Steve Farmer, Avalon CEO. “She was in conservation and forests.”

Farmer said he has not seen her since the pandemic when Avalon closed, although he intended to reinstate her after it reopened. “She would have been the last person I thought would get involved in something like this,” he said.

According to Cal Fire, the Shasta County fire had destroyed dozens of homes and grown to nearly 9,000 acres by Monday. The fire department had surrounded half of the fire with containment lines.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Smoke from forest fires in southern and central California has caused the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) to issue an air quality recommendation for Friday and Saturday.

The smoky and hazy skies are not expected to exceed federal health standards, and there was no Spare the Air Alert in effect, the district said. The Air District will closely monitor air quality across the region for smoke effects from forest fires.

CONTINUE READING: Highway Slingshot Shooter fires ball bearings at windows along the Guadalupe Freeway in San Jose

The BAAQMD said if smoke odor is present, exposure should be avoided and if possible, stay indoors with the windows and doors closed until the smoke level subsides, if temperatures allow.

CONTINUE READING: 3 school districts in East Bay rely on vaccination mandates for students

The district also recommended that those affected by smoke turn their air conditioning and car ventilation systems on to recirculation to prevent outside air from getting inside.

The elderly, children, and those with respiratory problems are particularly susceptible to increased air pollution and should take additional precautions to avoid exposure.

MORE NEWS: State-of-the-art water treatment plant helps fight drought in Silicon Valley

Bay Area residents can check their air quality readings at baaqmd.gov/highs.

The post Bay Space Air High quality Advisory Issued For Friday, Saturday Due to Wildfire Smoke – CBS San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

GREENVILLE, California – A three week old forest fire engulfed a tiny mountain town in Northern California, wiping out historic buildings and leaving much of the historic downtown area and apartment blocks in ashes, while a new windswept fire also destroyed homes as crews in dangerous weather on another Thursday prepared for explosive flame flow.

The Dixie Fire, swollen by bone-dry vegetation and 40 mph gusts, raged through the northern Sierra Nevada community of Greenville on Wednesday evening. A gas station, hotel, and bar were among the many furnishings gutted in the city, which dates from the California gold rush era and had some buildings that were more than a century old.

The fire “burned down our entire inner city. Our historic buildings, family houses, small businesses and our children’s schools are completely lost, ”wrote Kevin Goss, Plumas District Manager, on Facebook.

Officials couldn’t immediately tell how many buildings were destroyed, but photos and videos from the crime scene show that the destruction was widespread.

“We lost Greenville tonight,” said US Representative Doug LaMalfa, who represents the region, in an emotional Facebook video. “There are just no words.”

When the north and east sides of the fire exploded on Wednesday, the Plumas County Sheriff’s office issued an online warning to the city’s 800 or so residents: “You are in imminent danger and you MUST go now!”

The growing flame that erupted on July 21 is the largest current wildfire in the state and had blackened over 504 square miles, an area larger than the city of Los Angeles.

As of Thursday, it was the sixth largest fire in the history of the state, said the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Four of the state’s other five largest forest fires all occurred in 2020.

The neighboring Lassen Volcanic National Park was closed to all visitors because of the fire.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or deaths. Dozens of houses were already on fire before the flames restarted on Wednesday.

“We did everything we could,” said fire department spokesman Mitch Matlow. “Sometimes it’s just not enough.”

About 160 miles south, officials said between 35 and 40 houses and other buildings were on fire in the fast-moving river fire that broke out near Colfax, a town of about 2,000 people, on Wednesday. In a matter of hours, it ripped through nearly 4 square miles of dry bushes and trees.

There was no containment, and about 6,000 people in Placer and Nevada counties have been evacuated, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Earlier this week, around 5,000 firefighters had made progress with the Dixie Fire, rescued some threatened houses, leveled unburned vegetation and managed to encircle a third of the area.

More fire trucks and bulldozers have been ordered to aid the fight, Matlow said. On Wednesday, the fire grew by thousands of acres and an additional 4,000 people were ordered to evacuate, placing nearly 26,500 people in multiple counties under evacuation orders, he said.

Red flag weather conditions with high heat, low humidity, and gusty afternoon and evening winds erupted Wednesday and were expected to pose a continuing threat.

The winds were expected to change direction several times on Thursday, pressuring firefighters in sections of the fire that have not seen any activity in several days, officials said.

The trees, grass, and bushes were so dry that “if a glow lands, you’re virtually guaranteed to start a new fire,” said Matlow.

The Dixie Fire ran parallel to a canyon area that served as a chimney and got so hot it created enormous columns of pyrocumulus smoke. These clouds bring chaotic winds that make a fire “critically unpredictable” making it difficult to predict the direction of growth, he added.

Dawn Garofalo escaped from a friend’s mountain property with a dog and two horses, watching the rising cloud from the west side of Lake Almanor, a popular summer vacation spot with boating, fishing, and camping.

“There is only one way in and one way out,” she said on Wednesday. “I didn’t mean to be stuck up there when the fire came through.”

In Colfax, resident Jamie Brown had breakfast in a downtown restaurant Thursday morning while he waited to find out if his house was still standing or not.

He evacuated his property near Rollins Lake on Wednesday when “it looked like the whole town was going to burn down”. Conditions had calmed down a bit by Thursday and he was hoping for the best.

“I think I’d better have breakfast before I lose my home,” he said. “My house is right in the way if the wind sets the fire on a separate path.”

And about 150 miles west of the Dixie Fire, the lightning-triggered McFarland Fire threatened remote homes along the Trinity River in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The fire was only 7% contained after it burned nearly 85 square kilometers of drought-stricken vegetation.

Similar risky weather was expected across southern California, where heat warnings and warnings were issued for inner valleys, mountains and deserts for much of the week.

Heat waves and historic droughts related to climate change have made fighting wildfires in the western United States difficult. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier over the past 30 years, and the weather will continue to be more extreme and forest fires more frequent and more destructive.

More than 20,000 firefighters and relief workers fought 97 large, active forest fires that covered 7,560 square kilometers in 13 states, the National Interagency Fire Center said.

___

Weber answered from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Janie Har and Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco also contributed.

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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, California – Favorable weather helped firefighters trying to save communities on the southern end of Lake Tahoe from an approaching conflagration, but officials warned Wednesday that stiff winds and dry conditions mean homes in California’s Alpine Nevada region are in danger.

“Finally some good news about the weather around this fire,” said Jim Dudley, a meteorologist assigned to the fire, at an evening briefing. Winds are expected to calm down significantly over the next few days, he said, but the risks remain with extremely low humidity.

The Caldor Fire stayed about three miles south of the recently evacuated city of South Lake Tahoe and moved northeast towards the California-Nevada state line, said Henry Herrera, a battalion chief at the agency also known as Cal Fire.

The crews were desperate to keep flames away from urban communities where houses are close together and malls, hotels, and other buildings would provide even more fuel for a fire that previously lived on trees, grass, and scattered houses and huts.

“We are still not out of the forest. The fire is still moving, ”said Herrera.

The fire burned toward Lake Tahoe from the southwest along California Highway 50, rose over a peak in the Sierra Nevada, and descended into the Tahoe Basin.

Thick smoke has enveloped the city of South Lake Tahoe, which is almost deserted at a time when it is usually teeming with tourists. On Monday, around 22,000 residents and thousands more from neighboring communities blocked the city’s main artery after being asked to leave.

South Lake Tahoe city officials said only a handful of residents defied the evacuation order.

Meanwhile, officers were preparing for the next possible phase of the firefight.

While evacuation holdouts and private firefighters feed on fire hydrants across the city, the South Tahoe Public Utility District urged people to turn off hoses, irrigation systems and sprinklers to ensure wells can pump at full capacity. This means that “the minute a firefighter hooks up a fire hydrant, it gets full pressure and as much water as possible comes out,” said Shelly Thomsen, spokeswoman for the utility company.

In the city, white pickup rental companies dropped private firefighters sent by insurance companies to irrigate homes and clean decks with water from public fire hydrants. Gas stations offered prices of $ 5 per gallon (per 3.8 liters). Motels had “no vacancies” signs.

As the flames moved towards the Heavenly ski area, officials turned on the mountain’s snowmaking machines to increase the humidity and slow down any flames.

To his wife’s horror, John Rhodes, 60, stayed nearby to defend the couple’s neighborhood in an unincorporated area south of South Lake Tahoe that burned in the 2007 Angora fire.

Rhodes and his neighbors, including several firefighters outside the service of other California agencies, hosed houses and ran sprinkler systems to create a perimeter around the neighborhood to complement official fire fighting in the area. Their water usage resulted in a call from the utility district, Rhodes said.

As a rookie firefighter, he admitted to having butterflies.

“I was curious to see how I would get up near the hot spot. These guys are trying to coach me, ”Rhodes said, pointing to his firefighter friends who refused to speak to a reporter.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden issued a federal emergency statement ordering federal aid to supplement state and local resources for fire-fighting and assistance to residents in four fire-hit counties.

The Caldor Fire emptied not only South Lake Tahoe, but also parts of neighboring Stateline, Nevada.

Nevada casino regulators said gambling has been suspended at Hard Rock Lake Tahoe, Montbleu Resort, Harrah’s and Harvey’s Lake Tahoe, where officials said their casinos were closed to the public but their hotels were hosting firefighters and displaced workers.

The fire has destroyed at least 700 houses and other buildings and scorched nearly 827 square kilometers since it broke out on August 14. It still threatens at least 33,000 other homes and buildings. It was 20% included on Wednesday.

More than 15,000 firefighters, with the help of crews outside the state, battled dozens of California flames, including another monstrous fire in the same area.

Maj. Gen. David Baldwin, adjutant general of California, said the state had also dispatched more than 1,000 National Guard soldiers, Airmen and Sailors, and 10 other states had dispatched around 1,250 additional guardsmen. Many of them provide air support, including 23 planes, some with buckets of water, others with systems that can drop fire retardants.

Baldwin described the working conditions as “very tough,” especially for the handcrews who cut through thick bushes with shovels and picks. “You work in very dangerous areas.”

A firefighter who was injured while fighting the Caldor fire last weekend was due to be hospitalized for a month after a skin graft. Richard Gerety III of Patterson, Calif., Suffered third degree burns on over 20% of his body, the Modesto Bee reported.

About 65 miles north of the Flame of the Lake Tahoe area, the Dixie Fire is the second largest forest fire in the state’s history at 1,320 square miles (3,415 square kilometers). The week-old fire led to new evacuation orders and warnings this week.

Climate change has made the west much warmer and drier over the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and forest fires more frequent, destructive and unpredictable, scientists say.

Tom O’Connell and his wife Linda awaited the fate of their home in nearby Meyers as they anchored their sailboat in Ventura Harbor. The two bedrooms they have owned for 40 years survived the angora fire that destroyed around 250 homes in 2007. They didn’t know if they would be lucky again.

“You worry about the things that you can have some control over,” said O’Connell. “We have no control over it.”

Laura Forvilly had planned to stay at her Stateline condo for as long as possible, but her adult children persuaded her to pack their things on Tuesday and leave before an evacuation warrant. She reached her sister’s house in nearby Reno, where the air was clear and the sky was blue.

She is not worried about her home or her business that offers cruises on the lake. But she is surprised how close the fire is.

“I’m so sorry our beautiful Tahoe is going through this,” Forvilly said. “It’s hard to believe that it actually happens so close to where we live and work.”

———

Har reported from San Francisco. Antczak reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press authors Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco, Ken Ritter in Reno, and Christopher Weber and Brian Melley in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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DEVELOP … The story will be updated as soon as new information can be verified. Updated 2 times

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, California – Favorable weather helped firefighters trying to save communities on the southern end of Lake Tahoe from an approaching wildfire, but officials warned Wednesday that stiff winds and dry conditions mean homes in the Alpine California-Nevada region are still in operation Caution.

“Finally some good news about the weather around this fire,” said Jim Dudley, a meteorologist assigned to the fire, at an evening briefing. Winds are expected to calm down significantly over the next few days, he said, but the risks remain with extremely low humidity.

The Caldor Fire stayed about three miles south of the recently evacuated city of South Lake Tahoe and moved northeast toward the California-Nevada state line, said Henry Herrera, a battalion chief at the agency also known as Cal Fire.

The crews were desperate to keep flames away from urban communities where houses are close together and malls, hotels, and other buildings would provide even more fuel for a fire that previously lived on trees, grass, and scattered houses and huts.

“We are still not out of the forest. The fire is still moving, ”said Herrera.

The fire burned toward Lake Tahoe from the southwest along California Highway 50, rose over a peak in the Sierra Nevada, and descended into the Tahoe Basin.

Thick smoke has enveloped the city of South Lake Tahoe, which is almost deserted at a time when it is usually teeming with tourists. On Monday, around 22,000 residents and thousands more from neighboring communities blocked the city’s main artery after being asked to leave.

South Lake Tahoe city officials said only a handful of residents defied the evacuation order.

Meanwhile, officers were preparing for the next possible phase of the firefight.

While evacuation holdouts and private firefighters feed on fire hydrants across the city, the South Tahoe Public Utility District urged people to turn off hoses, irrigation systems and sprinklers to ensure wells can pump at full capacity. This means that “the minute a firefighter hangs in a fire hydrant, full pressure is built up and as much water as possible comes out,” said Shelly Thomsen, spokeswoman for the utility company.

In the city, white pickup rental companies dropped private firefighters sent by insurance companies to irrigate homes and clean decks with water from public fire hydrants. Gas stations offered prices of $ 5 per gallon (per 3.8 liters). Motels had “no vacancies” signs.

As the flames moved towards the Heavenly ski area, officials turned on the mountain’s snowmaking machines to increase the humidity and slow down any flames.

To his wife’s horror, John Rhodes, 60, stayed with the couple to defend the couple’s neighborhood in an unincorporated area south of South Lake Tahoe that burned in the 2007 Angora fire.

Rhodes and his neighbors, including several off-duty firefighters from other California agencies, hosed houses and ran sprinkler systems to create a perimeter around the neighborhood to supplement official fire fighting work nearby. Their water usage resulted in a call from the utility district, Rhodes said.

As a rookie firefighter, he admitted to having butterflies.

“I was curious to see how I would get up near the hot spot. These guys are trying to coach me, ”Rhodes said, pointing to his firefighter friends who refused to speak to a reporter.

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday asked President Joe Biden for a federal disaster statement that would complement state and local resources for fire fighting and assistance to residents affected by the fire.

The Caldor Fire emptied not only South Lake Tahoe, but also parts of neighboring Stateline, Nevada.

Nevada casino regulators said gambling has been suspended at Hard Rock Lake Tahoe, Montbleu Resort, Harrah’s and Harvey’s Lake Tahoe, where officials said their casinos were closed to the public but their hotels were hosting firefighters and displaced workers.

The fire has destroyed at least 700 houses and other buildings and scorched nearly 827 square kilometers since it broke out on August 14. It still threatens at least 33,000 other homes and buildings. It was 20% included on Wednesday.

More than 15,000 firefighters, with the help of crews outside the state, battled dozens of California flames, including another monstrous fire in the same area.

Maj. Gen. David Baldwin, adjutant general of California, said the state had also dispatched more than 1,000 National Guard soldiers, Airmen and Sailors, and 10 other states had dispatched around 1,250 additional guardsmen. Many of them provide air support, including 23 airplanes, some with water buckets and some with systems that can drop fire retardants.

Baldwin described the working conditions as “very tough”, especially for the handcrews who cut through thick bushes with shovels and picks. “You are working in very dangerous areas.”

A firefighter who was injured while fighting the Caldor fire last weekend was due to be hospitalized for a month after a skin graft. Richard Gerety III of Patterson, Calif., Suffered third degree burns on over 20% of his body, the Modesto Bee reported.

About 65 miles north of the flames in the Lake Tahoe area, the Dixie Fire is the second largest forest fire in the state’s history at 1,320 square miles (3,415 square kilometers). The week-old fire led to new evacuation orders and warnings this week.

Climate change has made the west much warmer and drier over the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and forest fires more frequent, destructive and unpredictable, scientists say.

Tom O’Connell and his wife Linda awaited the fate of their home in nearby Meyers as they anchored their sailboat in Ventura Harbor. The two bedrooms they have owned for 40 years survived the angora fire that destroyed around 250 homes in 2007. They didn’t know if they would be lucky again.

“You worry about the things that you can have some control over,” said O’Connell. “We have no control over it.”

Laura Forvilly had planned to stay at her Stateline condo for as long as possible, but her adult children persuaded her to pack their things on Tuesday and leave before an evacuation warrant. She reached her sister’s house in nearby Reno, where the air was clear and the sky was blue.

She is not worried about her home or her business that offers cruises on the lake. But she is surprised how close the fire is.

“I’m so sorry our beautiful Tahoe is going through this,” Forvilly said. “It’s hard to believe that it actually happens so close to where we live and work.”

___

Har reported from San Francisco. Antczak reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press authors Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco, Ken Ritter in Reno, and Christopher Weber and Brian Melley in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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