The Labor Day 2021 R-C Morning Report

Genoa, Nev. — A group of laborers who are hard at work this Labor Day are the around 5,000 firefighters battling the 336-square-mile badger that is the Caldor Fire, which has been chewing up the Sierra forest for the last two weeks. Honor them by being careful with open flame today and every day.

As long as there are active fires, there’s going to be smoke. The Minden sensor is indicating air quality in the unhealthy range with a reading of 177. The good news, such as it is, is that we haven’t seen a hazardous reading at that gauge since the beginning of the month.

The Dixie Fire continues to grow despite a lot of attention. While this morning’s situation report is showing a growth of 1,288 acres on Caldor in the last 24 hours, Dixie grew by 9,950 acres. Between Dixie and Caldor, they’ve burned more than 1 million acres and claimed more than 2,000 structures.

In non-fire news, Douglas merchants wrapped up the fiscal year with a $100 million month in June, according to the Nevada Department of Taxation. The 2020-21 fiscal year brought in $982 million for the year, up 19.4 percent from the year before.

Expect haze and smoke under mostly sunny skies with a high temperature around 93 degrees today and the breeze picking up out of the west at 5 mph this afternoon. The Zephyr will be 5-15 mph shifting to the southeast after 5 p.m.

Kurt Hildebrand is editor of The Record-Courier. Reach him at khildebrand@recordcourier.com