Reuters
Wildfire menaces California’s Lake Tahoe area after chasing away thousands
TRUCKEE, Calif. (Reuters) -Firefighters waged an all-out battle in heavy winds on Tuesday to protect homes on the fringe of tinder-dry forests near Lake Tahoe from a wildfire that has chased thousands of people from the popular resort destination in California’s Sierra Nevada range. The Caldor fire, burning since mid-August in the mountains east of the state capital, Sacramento, crested a ridgeline and roared downslope on Monday toward the southern end of the Tahoe basin that straddles the California-Nevada border, triggering mass evacuations. Traffic crammed local roads as South Lake Tahoe, a town of 22,000 residents, rapidly emptied along with several nearby villages, leaving the smoke-filled area normally thronged by summer vacationers largely deserted.