The smoke was getting thicker near Foothill Road in Carson Valley on Sunday night in this photo by resident Margaret Pross.
Genoa, Nev. — Air quality readings in Minden hit hazardous levels at 367 on the index while a sensor in Bodie Flat was actually reading barely in the good category with a 45 at 6 a.m. Carson Valley actually got two blasts of smoke over the last 12 hours, with the first 3-7 p.m. Sunday and this morning’s hitting those levels around 4 a.m.
Visibility at Minden-Tahoe Airport is down to 1.25 miles at 6:35 a.m., down from 3 miles just 20 minutes before. I expect the air quality is going to get worse this morning before it improves.
The smoke was generated by the growth of the Caldor Fire, which may have hit 180,000 acres this morning. I expect that the number of evacuees at the Douglas County Community & Senior Center may have increased with last night’s expanded evacuation orders.
A red flag warning for gusty winds and low humidity goes into effect 2 p.m. today through 11 p.m. Tuesday. The warning covers most of the Sierra north of Bridgeport.
If the last red flag warning was any indication, it’s entirely possible NV Energy will issue an alert for a public safety power outage at some point this morning for Genoa to Clear Creek. If the power company does cut the juice, be prepared for a long outage, since they have to check the lines after the wind stops.
Expect widespread smoke in the Valley through the day with the wind out of the southeast at 5-10 mph shifting to the southwest 10-15 mph, gusting to 25 mph into the night. The wind is forecast to pick up on Tuesday afternoon at 15-20 mph, gusting to 35 mph.
Kurt Hildebrand is editor of The Record-Courier. Reach him at khildebrand@recordcourier.com.
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