Caldor Fire explodes

[M&P40FAN]

A rapidly expanding wildfire in Northern California seriously injured two people and prompted mandatory evacuation orders for thousands of residents and tourists in El Dorado County on Tuesday morning.

The Caldor Fire, which ignited Saturday evening in the Omo Ranch area, about 60 miles east of Sacramento, exploded Tuesday from 6,500 acres in the morning to roughly 30,000 acres by the evening hours, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

It remains zero percent contained.

Residents in the town of Grizzly Flats were hit hard by the fire. Two people were airlifted with serious injuries and very few homes were left standing in Grizzly Flats, a town of about 1,200 residents, where streets were littered with downed power lines and poles. Houses were reduced to smoldering ash and twisted metal with only chimneys rising above the ruins. A post office and elementary school were also destroyed.

Authorities expanded evacuation orders for neighboring communities Tuesday morning — including for residents in Sly Park, Happy Valley and the Grizzly Flats and Somerset areas — while campers were rushed out of the Sly Park Recreation Area. Dark heavy smoke blanketed much of the region, including in nearby Lake Tahoe and other population destinations, prompting bumper-to-bumper traffic along evacuation routes.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ornia-n1276950

[spegull03]

I was just about to post this as I know we have a few west slope calgunners on here. If anyone needs a helping hand shoot me a PM.

[California_Deplorable]

FUGG. That sucks.

[TacFan]

WTF is going on with all these fires ? Has to be arson ... don't tell me it's climate change

https://twitter.com/i/status/1427826304808755208

[the_tunaman]

Forestry mis-management

[Sierra57]

Go back 12 hours on this webcam and watch it grow. It is ominous.

http://www.alertwildfire.org/tahoe/i...mera=Axis-Leek

[M1A Rifleman]

Originally Posted by TacFan

WTF is going on with all these fires ? Has to be arson ... don't tell me it's climate change

https://twitter.com/i/status/1427826304808755208

Wont surprise me if its planned to let it burn. Get people out of the forest and remote areas and force them to live in urban high rises - Agenda 21.

[Sierra57]

Originally Posted by the_tunaman

Forestry mis-management

This fire started on Sunday and was growing slowly until last night. This is another fire that got away from USFS.

Looks like it's only a couple of miles away from Highway 50 now. If we get a north wind, it could also go south towards Highway 88.

http://www.alertwildfire.org/tahoe/i...mera=Axis-Leek

https://maps.nwcg.gov/sa/#/%3F/%3F/38.6532/-120.4484/12

[xXRifleManXx]

It’s a mess, got off work and cooked up a bunch of food and drove it over to the church in diamondsprings. Anything people can do for folks will really help. People in campers and sleeping in vehicles everywhere.

[Cali-Glock]

It was/is insane.

It started as a small fire and CalFire telling Grizzly Flats folks not to sweat it.

It then blew up to about 700 some odd acres and they said everything was still okay.

Monday evening the first voluntary evac orders went out, then the mandatory evac orders, but they only gave voluntary and mandatory evac orders to those in Grizzly Flat proper, no notice given to the folks in Somerset that abut Grizzly Flat.

The fire went north and blew through Grizzly Flats and El Dorado and Amador Sheriff Deputies went house between 2-4am in the neighborhoods outside Grizzly telling people to evac.

By this morning the 700 some odd acre fire had burned 6500 acres, they are now saying it has burned more than 30,000 acres.

It is amazing no one was killed.

I have watched several video tours of Grizzly taken today - it seemed like in at least half the cases, you could not tell a house had even been there previously.

Everyone in that community is excited to get back up there, assess the damage and start rebuilding, but they won't be able to get insurance on their new home... not quite true they can purchase a fire policy from the Fair program for $6K to $18K

The western most edges of Grizzly Flats was apparently spared last night/this morning, but this evening the live fire map shows those streets on fire.

[highender]

Take care, and praying for all those involvved and affected.

[cjc16]

Originally Posted by TacFan

=.. don't tell me it's climate change

https://twitter.com/i/status/1427826304808755208

it's climate change. Earth's climate has never stopped changing.

[Chiefnra]

Rural homes i get, but,
Towns are full of paved streets, which are fire breaks, so why do we keep seeing towns burn down?

[Wheelin4]

Originally Posted by Chiefnra

Rural homes i get, but,
Towns are full of paved streets, which are fire breaks, so why do we keep seeing towns burn down?

A 12' wide street doesn't mean **** to a crown fire driven by wind. We live in the forest and trees up here are 100+ feet tall.

[Sierra57]

Originally Posted by Cali-Glock

It was/is insane.

It started as a small fire and CalFire telling Grizzly Flats folks not to sweat it.

It then blew up to about 700 some odd acres and they said everything was still okay.

Monday evening the first voluntary evac orders went out, then the mandatory evac orders, but they only gave voluntary and mandatory evac orders to those in Grizzly Flat proper, no notice given to the folks in Somerset that abut Grizzly Flat.

The fire went north and blew through Grizzly Flats and El Dorado and Amador Sheriff Deputies went house between 2-4am in the neighborhoods outside Grizzly telling people to evac.

By this morning the 700 some odd acre fire had burned 6500 acres, they are now saying it has burned more than 30,000 acres.

It is amazing no one was killed.

I have watched several video tours of Grizzly taken today - it seemed like in at least half the cases, you could not tell a house had even been there previously.

Everyone in that community is excited to get back up there, assess the damage and start rebuilding, but they won't be able to get insurance on their new home... not quite true they can purchase a fire policy from the Fair program for $6K to $18K

The western most edges of Grizzly Flats was apparently spared last night/this morning, but this evening the live fire map shows those streets on fire.

USFS is already making excuses as to why they didn't jump on the fire right away. They are saying that the terrain is too rough, even though there are several dirt roads right near the point of origin.

I will see what other excuses they come up with on the ten o'clock news.

[Pinto]

They have Aero Commander up mapping the Caldor fire that's now moved on to mapping the Dixie fire.


N501TC - https://www.flightradar24.com/N501TC/28d1fc36

[harbormaster]

It sickens me environmentalist blame MMGW and ignore their own impacts on our state.

[Sierra57]

The fire has moved so fast that none of the acreage calculations on various fire mapping sites are even close to accurate. A talking head on the 6 o'clock news said 30,000 acres, and he also said that estimate was a couple of hours old. I'm thinking it is over 50,000.

[tuolumnejim]

Its going to be a bad one, I saw the smoke plume rising from my house in Stagecoach, Nevada this morning.

Check this video its hotter than hades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqU8T8tkWTY&t=123s

[Cali-Glock]

Originally Posted by Sierra57

This fire started on Sunday and was growing slowly until last night. This is another fire that got away from USFS.

Looks like it's only a couple of miles away from Highway 50 now. If we get a north wind, it could also go south towards Highway 88.

http://www.alertwildfire.org/tahoe/i...mera=Axis-Leek

https://maps.nwcg.gov/sa/#/%3F/%3F/38.6532/-120.4484/12

Yes, there are some annoyed people. The folks in Grizzly Flats were pushing for an aggressive stance on this fire when it was started and the authorities repeatedly reassured the community they had nothing to worry about.

Last night/morning was a different story - Amador and El Dorado Deputies everywhere pulling people off the hill. Cal-Fire and fire trucks from agencies all over were all over Grizzly Flat road. I honestly believe they kept people from dying Monday Night/Tuesday morning.

I know a senior CCF field management who normally runs a command out of McClellan AFB overseeing these types of fires but he has personal ties to Grizzly Flats and apparently chose to be on scene instead of at a remote command center. Questionable perhaps, but it is another sign to me of just how seriously everyone took this fire when it did blow up Monday night.

Other than a couple of cat-naps in my truck today, I have not slept since Sunday.

In this thread alone I have already violated opsec than I have in total over the past two plus decades online. (I had zero online Opsec in the early-mid 1990s) So what the hell. In a few weeks just forget this thread and what I say here. I will try to shut up after this statement: I am fine and grateful, but this has been difficult. The wonderful thing is the amazing positive attitude that everyone has; I have spent the night communicating with friend after friend who has lost everything but the shirt on their backs, a vehicle and some pets and to a person they are all positive and encouraging one another. As I write this I just got word from a close friend that he has confirmation that his house is indeed gone.




This was taken this evening at Ice House Road on Highway 50!

[Misterclick]

My heart goes out to everyone impacted whether just evacuated or nothing to come back to after. Fires are relentless and brutal. Just having to leave what is supposed to be your safe harbor is for wrenching.

Pray and thank the firefighters!

[Cali-Glock]

Originally Posted by Wheelin4

A 12' wide street doesn't mean **** to a crown fire driven by wind. We live in the forest and trees up here are 100+ feet tall.

Exactly. Check out the flames roaring over the tops of those 100 foot tall trees.

It is insane. Fire breaks, 100+ foot clear areas around homes are great, but if have a real fire, none of that means anything.

I was in the 1990 Painted Cave Fire in Santa Barbara. The fire went from the top of the mountain behind Santa Barbara, though neighborhood after neighborhood and at about 6pm it jumped a six lane freeway (plus frontage roads) and immediately lit up the neighborhood on the other side. If a fire is not going to slow down for a 6 lane freeway, no amount of fire-safe preps are going to do anything to thwart a fire like we are witnessing in the Caldor Fire. (Or any of the other big fires we have had in recent years.)

Poor forest management is the big problem... the other problem are the idiots who live in such a place.

[Cali-Glock]

Originally Posted by Misterclick

My heart goes out to everyone impacted whether just evacuated or nothing to come back to after. Fires are relentless and brutal. Just having to leave what is supposed to be your safe harbor is for wrenching.

Pray and thank the firefighters!

Amen!!!

[SanDiego619]

Originally Posted by Wheelin4

A 12' wide street doesn't mean **** to a crown fire driven by wind. We live in the forest and trees up here are 100+ feet tall.

Yep, with high winds embers can blow a lot farther than 12 feet, or 120 feet, or 1200 feet.

[GOEX FFF]

Originally Posted by tuolumnejim

Its going to be a bad one, I saw the smoke plume rising from my house in Stagecoach, Nevada this morning.

Check this video its hotter than hades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqU8T8tkWTY&t=123s

The size and height of those flames is insane.

Here's the same video without the talking.
Set the playback speed to 0.25.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka07cAWb230

[Sierra57]

Originally Posted by Cali-Glock

Yes, there are some annoyed people. The folks in Grizzly Flats were pushing for an aggressive stance on this fire when it was started and the authorities repeatedly reassured the community they had nothing to worry about.

Last night/morning was a different story - Amador and El Dorado Deputies everywhere pulling people off the hill. Cal-Fire and fire trucks from agencies all over were all over Grizzly Flat road. I honestly believe they kept people from dying Monday Night/Tuesday morning.

I know a senior CCF field management who normally runs a command out of McClellan AFB overseeing these types of fires but he has personal ties to Grizzly Flats and apparently chose to be on scene instead of at a remote command center. Questionable perhaps, but it is another sign to me of just how seriously everyone took this fire when it did blow up Monday night.

Other than a couple of cat-naps in my truck today, I have not slept since Sunday.

In this thread alone I have already violated opsec than I have in total over the past two plus decades online. (I had zero online Opsec in the early-mid 1990s) So what the hell. In a few weeks just forget this thread and what I say here. I will try to shut up after this statement: I am fine and grateful, but this has been difficult. The wonderful thing is the amazing positive attitude that everyone has; I have spent the night communicating with friend after friend who has lost everything but the shirt on their backs, a vehicle and some pets and to a person they are all positive and encouraging one another. As I write this I just got word from a close friend that he has confirmation that his house is indeed gone.




This was taken this evening at Ice House Road on Highway 50!

The USFS also reassured the public that everything was okay on the Tamarack Fire near Markleeville over a month ago, and a wind that came up caused that fire to take off after doing little for a few days. They could have easily knocked that fire down. I'm not sure what BS excuse they used on that fire. We could see the pyrocumulus clouds from Fallen Leaf every afternoon and evening while we were there.

[Cali-Glock]

Originally Posted by SanDiego619

Yep, with high winds embers can blow a lot farther than 12 feet, or 120 feet, or 1200 feet.

The leading edge of the fire is made up of tons of spot fires which started by those embers blowing out in front of the main fire. Shifting winds also send spot fires off into other directions besides the primary leading front as well.

[Sierra57]

Originally Posted by SanDiego619

Yep, with high winds embers can blow a lot farther than 12 feet, or 120 feet, or 1200 feet.

My brother was in the middle of the Oakland Hills firestorm. He saw the embers dropping down from way up the hill and across the 24/13 interchange and Lake Temescal, and start fires in the upper Rockridge neighborhood.

[lapsbpbep]

I have family by slypark that was evacuated this morning and I also have family up in Woodford that had to evaluate. Too the ones In Woodford lost there house back in 1986 . We all hate this time of year. My prayers are with all of the people who are affected by these fires 🔥. I would love to move up in to the hills but dealing with fires is the reason I don't think keep all these people in are prayers

[Sierra57]

There is a spot fire now on Highway 50 at Riverton and numerous spot fires to the east of the main fire.

[ColdDeadHands1]

Here are some good resources for the Caldor Fire:

Fire perimeter map:
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/map/7801/0/#

Evacuation map:
https://eldoradocounty.maps.arcgis.c...7d831d3ba938ff

[M&P40FAN]

With the shift in winds I'm concerned about the Volcano area and highway 88 corridor.

[marksolar]

If you want to see the wind patterns, and predicted wind patters, go to
windy.com

[nitroxdiver]

Good site to get info and intel if anyone’s not familiar with it.

https://forums.wildfireintel.org


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Defy Concealment]

My girlfriend and her family live 2 blocks from the grizzly flats post office. They managed to get their important things out like photos, pets, and their paperwork, but their house is most likely gone. As bad as it is, others had it much worse.

I will say that as usual, I am impressed with the community in our county. The last two days its been nothing but convoys helping get animals or people out, and many people have opened their properties for trailers and tents. Several local restaurants have been offering free meals to those displaced.

[inthemountains]

Was fortunate enough to visit Grizzly Flats a couple of years back, friends Uncle who passed away last year had a super nice house there. Probably did not survive the fire.

The pool house was bigger than the house I live in. Beautiful county up there.

[iropem]

Cali now is a “perfect storm” for these fires. Actually the whole west is intermittently but California is and always has been the wildfire glory state, increasingly so, to the death and detriment of its residents and businesses. Here is why:
Mediterranean climate with common droughts and common foehn winds all of which sets the stage for disaster.
Fire friendly fuel loading at every elevation that needs frequent low intensity fire to be healthy.
Extremely rough and rugged terrain, lots of which is inaccessible to suppress small initial attack fires regardless of aircraft.
All out fire suppression since 1910 which had led to a mess of choked forests and lots of dead component.
Crazy CRAZY CRAZY state and federal environmental laws.
Widespread limiting of prescribed fire and VMP burns.
Widespread limiting of responsible logging and grazing
Insane unabated building in historical fire corridors.
Population explosion for 30 years in wildland intermix/interface areas.
Limiting transfer of power lines underground in all intermix/interface areas.
Competition for resources when multiple starts get going which just means all the fires get bigger.

This is not an exhaustive list but is accurate IMO

the single biggest issue is corrupt policies, mismanagement and “leadership” in Sacramento for 50 years and definitely not climate change ( “climate change” does give them a good scapegoat to absolve them of responsibility and yet keeps the money flowing)

[user120312]

CalFire info page, updated about an hour ago...
https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/20...4/caldor-fire/
A bit surprised only 242 personnel on the fire considering it's over 60K acres with zero containment. Short of resources would match the scanner chatter I was listening to yesterday.

Looks like they upgraded the northeast sector warning to an order. Winds are expected to shift to an easterly flow after mid-day, hope the fire doesn't gain a foothold in the American River canyon along 50 that's pretty virgin and a wind funnel, plus a lot of structures along there.

This roughly 100 minutes of raw helo footage from KCRA chronicles yesterday's nastiness pretty well.
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1MnxnlMkzjLGO


God be with the residents and defenders.

[DaveInOroValley]

Have a friend that's been fighting the current fires, he goes where ever needed.

I remember a day when The Forest Service used to have these camps in the Sierra that were filled with low level offenders and all they used to do was clean and clear cut the dead and dying undergrowth.

The prisoners loved being in the outdoors and while hard work it was better than looking at bars all day. Back then I sure don't remember ever having a problem with out of control fires happening.

[Sierra57]

Originally Posted by iropem

Cali now is a “perfect storm” for these fires. Actually the whole west is intermittently but California is and always has been the wildfire glory state, increasingly so, to the death and detriment of its residents and businesses. Here is why:
Mediterranean climate with common droughts and common foehn winds all of which sets the stage for disaster.
Fire friendly fuel loading at every elevation that needs frequent low intensity fire to be healthy.
Extremely rough and rugged terrain, lots of which is inaccessible to suppress small initial attack fires regardless of aircraft.
All out fire suppression since 1910 which had led to a mess of choked forests and lots of dead component.
Crazy CRAZY CRAZY state and federal environmental laws.
Widespread limiting of prescribed fire and VMP burns.
Widespread limiting of responsible logging and grazing
Insane unabated building in historical fire corridors.
Population explosion for 30 years in wildland intermix/interface areas.
Limiting transfer of power lines underground in all intermix/interface areas.
Competition for resources when multiple starts get going which just means all the fires get bigger.

This is not an exhaustive list but is accurate IMO

the single biggest issue is corrupt policies, mismanagement and “leadership” in Sacramento for 50 years and definitely not climate change ( “climate change” does give them a good scapegoat to absolve them of responsibility and yet keeps the money flowing)

There has been a lot of home building all up and down the Sierras over the last 50 years. I have heard people (usually coastal urbanistas) say that others should not be allowed to live in the mountains in outlying areas. My reply is that people should not be allowed to live in areas where there is the potential for a major earthquake, which leaves them like " Uuuuuuhhh....."

Going further with that mindset, we should not allow building in areas that are prone to hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, blizzards, landslides, etc. That eliminates about 99% of the US.