Surreal Photos Show the Fierce Battle Against Caldor Fire at a Tahoe Ski Resort

The resort’s snow guns usually sit idle in summer, waiting for below-freezing temperatures to make artificial snow. The high-pressure water lines used to spray frozen faux precipitation also make them a valuable tool in case of summer fire. “We are prepared to fight the good fight with fire crews + apparatus on-site,” the resort wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday morning.

That included the snow guns, which were used to wet vegetation and structures in hopes of protecting them from the advancing wall of flames.

Despite the intensity of the flames, the resort’s snow guns and firefighters working through the night appear to have saved the ski lifts and structures. KCRA3-TV reporter Mike TeSelle tweeted pictures on Monday morning local time showing surreal scenes of smoldering logs and ground amidst the lifts and snow guns. But he reported that all structures were saved.

Beyond the resort, the fire has already destroyed hundreds of structures in the communities that are interspersed in the normally placid forests of the Sierra Nevada. Grizzly Flats, a small community to the west of the Lake Tahoe basin, was burned over last week even as life continued mostly as normal in the towns closer to the lake. More than 470 structures have been destroyed, permanently altering the course of people’s lives and livelihoods.

There are currently 3,684 firefighting personnel battling the Caldor Fire. But the steep terrain and erratic conditions have made it hard for them to get a handle on it. As of Monday morning local time, the fire was just 14% contained and had burned through 177,260 acres.

Conditions on Sunday night were brutal, but Monday could prove even worse. Red flag warnings are in place across the Sierras with winds expected to gust to 35 mph (56 kph) amid single-digit humidity. That’s about as catastrophic as fire conditions can get, and in part why local officials decided to evacuate South Lake Tahoe. There are a staggering 18,347 structures in the fire’s path.

The fire entered the Tahoe basin late on Monday morning local time, becoming the second fire to ever climb over the top of the Sierra Nevada, California’s tallest mountain range. This formerly unprecedented fire behavior has now happened twice this year when the Dixie Fire, California’s largest single fire ever recorded, did the same.

California and other western states have faced increasingly dire wildfire weather. A mix of the climate crisis, decades of fire suppression, and infrastructure prone to igniting fires have made forests more prone to explosive wildfires.

Watching a fire crawl into the Tahoe basin raises uncomfortable questions about how safe mountain towns are in the face of these trends, and shows the monumental effort needed to ensure those that continue to live there are afforded some protection.

Evacuating thousands of people is no small task, particularly with one major road going east and out of harm’s way. Sheriffs went door-to-door to give the orders for residents and tourists to leave. But crushing traffic jams followed.

Brake lights lit up bumper-to-bumper traffic under smoke-clogged skies. Rob Carlmark, a meteorologist with ABC10, warned that those in traffic should have a plan if spot fires start to ignite along the road, underscoring the danger of the situation.

It’s an eerily familiar scene; those fleeing the deadly Camp Fire were stuck in similar traffic and many fled on foot as the fire suddenly tore into the town of Paradise, California. That’s not to say this situation will be the same, but the danger is there as winds whip up.

Scenes like those that played out at Sierra-at-Tahoe are also becoming the bizarre normal of life in the era of climate change. Turkish and Greek beachgoers had a front-row seat to explosive wildfires there recently, smoke-filled skies have been the backdrop for tourist photos in Australia during the 2019-20 bushfire season, and the list goes on.

It reinforces what the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report made clear: Nowhere is safe as long as we keep burning fossil fuels.

Updated, 8/30/21, 4:55 p.m. ET: This post has been updated with new information about the Caldor Fire entering the Tahoe basin.