Fire threatens Lake Tahoe area

More communities around the California-Nevada state line were under evacuation orders on Sunday afternoon. The Caldor Fire near Lake Tahoe has burned an area larger than the city of Chicago and is 19 percent contained.

Is it likely to get better soon? Temperatures could climb higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit and stay extremely hot for several days. Fire managers don’t expect full containment of the blaze until Sept. 8 at best. Authorities issued a red-flag critical fire condition warning for Monday and Tuesday in the northern Sierra Nevada. Other fires have closed interstates and burned national forest land further south in California. And the Sierra-Cascades Dixie Fire—the second-largest in California’s history—has destroyed almost 700 homes since sparking in early July. It remains only 48 percent contained. The Department of Defense deployed 200 soldiers from Washington to support firefighting efforts in Northern California.

Dig deeper: Listen to Sarah Schweinsberg’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about the lone surviving member of an elite firefighting crew.