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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, California — Thousands of firefighters dispatched an arsenal of 25 helicopters and more than 400 fire trucks and 70 water trucks. Yet the fire continued to advance.

To slow the advance of the flames through the steep, rugged terrain of the Sierra Nevada, they threw retarding chemicals into an ash-filled sky and bulldozed trees and bushes. Yet the fire continued to advance.

erupting along a granite ridge into the Lake Tahoe basin, caldor fever it now threatens tens of thousands of homes and hotels surrounding the lake.

On Tuesday, the smoky streets of South Lake Tahoe, the lake’s most populous city, were deserted except for a convoy of police patrol cars and the occasional fire truck. Thousands of residents and tourists had been evacuated the day before.

Famous for its bright blue hues and evergreen forests that surrounded it, the lake was drowned in a sickly orange-gray haze. On the yet-to-be-evacuated Nevada side of the border, an industry was still limping: a group of gamblers were sitting at slot machines to the roar of large air cleaners trying to keep the pungent smoke away. The air quality index was approaching 500, a level considered dangerous.

make war caldor fever It’s been humbling and sad for California firefighters. Experts believe the challenge is a cautionary tale for future megafires in the West, making clear the certain futility of trying to fully control the most aggressive bushfires.

“No matter how many people you deal with in these fires, it’s not a large enough workforce to put out the fire,” said Malcolm North, a fire expert at the U.S. Forest Service and a professor at the University of California, Davis.

“You can save certain areas or certain homes,” said Professor North. “But the fire will do what it will do until the weather changes.”

On Monday, with the effect of strong winds, fire formed a granite ridge what authorities hope will serve as a natural barrier. The embers leaped past the firefighters and landed on the valley floor just a few miles from South Lake Tahoe. Earlier on Tuesday, the fire was contained in the Tahoe basin. The pine trees ignited by the flying embers were completely engulfed in flames and radiated a bright orange glow across the night sky.

Officials said it was only the second time a wildfire started on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada to spread to the east. The first happened this summer: the Dixie fire, the second-largest fire in California history. No casualties were reported in either fire.

Officials say about 27,000 firefighters are battling the blazes across the country, of which about 15,000 are in California. All national forests in California will be closed Tuesday night. Hundreds of soldiers and airmen and large numbers of military aircraft were sent by the National Guard. But resources are no match for the wild flames that continue to outpace firefighters and erupt across the state.

Flames in Sierra forests have revealed the domino effects of climate change on firefighting challenges: Frequent heat waves and generally high temperatures have dried up the West Coast flora, making it more vulnerable to major fires. The drought weakened the trees, which encouraged insect infestations that contributed to the death of humans. 150 million trees. This creates more fuel for fires.

Scientists say that there is also a relationship between global warming and global warming. increased wind conditions fueled severe wildfires throughout the state. And by thinning some of the thickest trees, they point to the need for better forest management.

Experts said what characterizes the megafires of recent years is their tendency to eject embers – sometimes miles – far beyond the main fire front, and the embers to land on scorched land that is instantly combustible. This can quickly expand the fire’s perimeter by jumping over one of the main containment vehicles: bulldozer areas known as fire breaks that form a containment line.

The Tubbs fire in October 2017 jumped over a six-lane highway normally considered a tough fire break and continued to burn 1,200 homes in the Coffey Park residential area.

“These instantaneous fires cause a lot of havoc,” said Craig Clements, professor of meteorology and director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University, a group that models the spread of the Caldor fire.

“There’s fire everywhere,” Professor Clements added, “and that makes it very difficult to suppress.” As a measure of how combustible the landscape has become, other scientists have calculated that embers have a 90 percent chance of becoming a point fire when they land.

The chaotic way these megafires spread was showcased Monday in the hills above South Lake Tahoe. Kyle Hukkanen led a team of 12 inmate firefighters armed with axes, shovels, and saws. They descended a steep slope of granite boulders and evergreen trees until they reached a point where clouds of smoke rose from the ground.

They dug up the smoldering fire and sprayed it with water before returning to their idling trucks. “This is not good,” said Mr. Hukkanen, as the blowing wind fed the fire on the slopes. The radio crackled with reports of a spotting further down the mountain towards South Lake Tahoe, and Mr. Hukkanen and his crew disappeared on a smoke-covered road.

Firefighters say some extinguishers are suitable on a smaller scale, but are superior to large fires in recent years.

In the hills and troughs, where the Caldor fire had burned 190,000 acres in the last two weeks, helicopters dropped huge buckets of water – thousands of gallons at a time – but these seemed almost no match.

“This is great for protecting a neighborhood, but when you consider the size of a 750,000-acre fire, that’s nothing,” said Professor North, a U.S. Forest Service expert on dripping water or retardant into large woodlands.

He and others added that the mission to contain the Sisyphean fire indicates a desperate need for better mitigation.

Controlled burns adopting Native methods to use “good” fire Fighting devastating megafires has become an increasingly accepted method in recent years, but experts say the government has a lot to do.

Until then, attempts to suppress the fire are inevitably necessary to save lives and property. Last year, California spent more than $1 billion on emergency firefighting efforts, but cut the prevention budget. This year’s budget includes more than $500 million for fire prevention, Governor Gavin Newsom said in April.

Still, sources remain strained. The U.S. Forest Service has struggled to retain federal firefighters. win about half Ratio of their state colleagues’ salaries at Cal Fire. By the time the Caldor fire reached 6,500 acres in mid-August, only 242 firefighters had been assigned to the fire. Eventually, hundreds were redeployed from the Dixie fire, which ravaged more than 800,000 acres and was less than halfway through Tuesday afternoon.

On the receiving end of the worsening flames are residents wondering where any place would be safe from wildfire.

Among those evicted from South Lake Tahoe were real estate investor Darren Cobrae and the couple’s partner, Stephanie Cothern, who was driving their car towards the Nevada state line.

Inside were bags of clothes, two large parrots and three dogs, Banana, Freddy and Copper.

Mr. Cobrae said he had moved from Southern California to South Lake Tahoe, where his home nearly burned down in a wildfire in 2007.

“I thought I would be safe in this city,” Mr. Cobrae said. “And now this,” he said, pointing to a sky thickened with smoke.