Caldor Fire intensifies overnight
Approaches Lake Tahoe after mass evacuation
LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (CBS) - The Caldor Fire intensified overnight, causing evacuation orders near Lake Tahoe early Tuesday morning.
The fire has choked the popular vacation haven. Cal Fire reports that the fire has spread to more than 186,000 acres and is 15% contained.
The wildfire had burned through remote areas in the Sierra Nevada for two weeks.
On Monday it crested a ridge and began descending toward the major population centers along Lake Tahoe.
Roads clogged with fleeing vehicles as of thousands of summer tourists evacuated from the resort city of South Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border.
Monday's fresh evacuation orders, unheard of in the city, came a day after communities several miles south of the lake were abruptly ordered to evacuate as the Caldor Fire raged nearby. South Lake Tahoe's main medical facility, Barton Memorial Hospital, proactively evacuated dozens of patients, and the El Dorado Sheriff's Office transferred inmates to a neighboring jail.
The Caldor Fire has scorched 277 square miles since breaking out August 14. More than 600 structures have been destroyed, and at least 20-thousand more were threatened. Governor Steve Sisolak on Monday declared a state of emergency in Nevada, citing "the anticipation" that the wildfire in the Lake Tahoe area in California would burn across the state line into Nevada.
