California's Caldor Fire triggered fresh evacuation orders for communities in Amador County, near Sacramento, as it neared the Lake Tahoe Basin on Sunday night.
Driving the news: Containment of the blaze dropped to 13% as it grew to over 168,000 acres on Sunday amid extremely dry conditions, as it razed at least four cabins near Echo Summit, the Sacramento Bee notes.
- Cal Fire Division Chief Eric Schwab said firefighters had been "seeing about a half-mile of movement on the fire's perimeter each day" for the past couple of weeks, and on Sunday "this has already moved at 2.5 miles on us, with no sign that it’s starting to slow down," per AP.
Threat level: The National Weather Service issued a Red Flag warning for areas including around Lake Tahoe and the Caldor Fire zone, effective from 11 a.m. Monday to 11 p.m. Tuesday, with strong southwesterly winds and more triple-digit temperatures expected for the region.
The big picture: The Caldor Fire ignited on Aug. 14 in the Omo Ranch area and has been "steadily pushing eastward toward the basin," the Sacramento Bee reports.
Context: Scientists have tied these extreme weather events to climate change.
- A sweeping UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report published earlier this month found that the connection between human emissions of greenhouse gases and global warming is "unequivocal."