The Tamarack Fire, which has been burning for two weeks south of Lake Tahoe in California, grew more than 2,500 acres Thursday and has jumped into Nevada, prompting new evacuations and power outages.
One of 83 large blazes burning across more than 1.3 million acres throughout the U.S., according to the National Interagency Fire Center, the Tamarack Fire has consumed 58,000 acres since starting with a lightning strike July 4. It was about 4% contained Friday morning, said Tracy LeClair, a public-information officer with the Rocky Mountain Type 1 Incident Management Team.
As of Friday, about 10 structures were known to have burned in the Tamarack fire, but parts of the burn area were still too hot for crews to investigate for more damage, Ms. LeClair said. About 1,300 firefighters were working in the area in California and Nevada, and so far the blaze has an estimated cost of about $8.7 million.
Conditions Friday could prove dangerous, she said, as temperatures were expected to reach the high 80s and wind gusts as high as 40 miles an hour.
In southern Oregon, the Bootleg Fire has now burned roughly 400,000 acres and is about 40% contained. It is the largest fire in the region, and officials say it as unusual to have such a large fire in that area so early in the fire season. Such large fires in the Pacific Northwest are more common in August or September.