The Angora Fire is burning in California, basically on the south and west edge of the city of South Lake Tahoe, California.

I'm a firefighter in Reno. I was off duty this weekend so I missed the opportunity to go. Kind of a mixed blessing, hate to miss the big ones, but hate to be gone for a week busting your ass, too.

In any case, Nevada sent a ton of resources, all requested about 45 minutes into the fire at approximately 3:00 Sunday afternoon. My department alone sent three Type 1 structure engines and three Type 3 (heavy) brush engines. They are all still there.

Latest report I saw is:

3100 acres
45% contained
2000+ people evacuated
225 structures destroyed, 178 of which were homes.

Two forest service firefighters got burned-over yesterday. They survived by getting into their fire shelters. They were in those things with fire all around them for 45 minutes. They've got to be the luckiest bastards alive...

Bottom line. This summer is going to be wildfire hell. It's like "the perfect storm" for brush/forest fires all over the west. Live-fuel moisture's are lower than they've ever been since they started taking them in the 1950's.

Global warming means more windy days (same effect that has the gulf coast having more hurricanes than ever before), and stronger winds on those windy days. Winds at the fire are expected to reach 15 to 25 mph by this afternoon, with gusts of 40 mph. That fire isn't going out anytime soon.

Be careful when you're out off roading. NO cig butts out the window. NO campfires, (take a small propane grill). If you're into riding quad's, make damn sure you've got a good, legal spark arrester on the muffler.

And have a cell phone with you, in case all of this doesn't get the job done, so you can get it reported and the troops coming fast. If we can get a ton of resources on these things when they're still small, we've got a chance. If not, all bets are off.

This is NOT going to be the biggest/worst fire in the Sierra this summer, you can bet on that.

Anyway, play safe out there!