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A wildfire in California saw explosive growth on Friday as the area north of Lake Tahoe braced for triple-digit temperatures this weekend amid a summer heatwave.
The fire at the Beckwourth complex on federal lands near the town of Beckwourth caused evacuations, the closure of part of the Plumas National Forest and presented a serious danger to campgrounds in the area, said officials from the National Forest Service.
As the blaze moved east toward Nevada, authorities were considering closing Highway 395, a popular route with tourists heading to Reno, Forest Service spokeswoman Phyllis Ashmead said. A nearby railway line was also at risk, spokeswoman Lisa Cox later added.
Several other routes including national road 284, were closed because of the fire.
“Yesterday it took a big race,” she said, “and today he’s grown even more.”
Containment was limited to 9% on Friday, and 38,056 acres had burned. A singular complex fire was declared on July 4 after the Dotta fire, which began on June 30, and the sugar fire, which began on July 2, combined. Both were triggered by lightning, federal officials said.
The resort’s fire nearly doubled on Friday, adding 10,000 acres to its footprint, forestry officials reported. Then he added an additional 14,871 acres in the evening, they said.
The weather outlook was bleak. The National Weather Service reported lightning on the eastern flank of the blaze.
“Cloud-to-ground lightning and erratic exit winds above 30 mph are possible near the complex,” the weather service said in a special weather statement on Friday.
It was 94 degrees Friday in Beckwourth, about 55 miles north of Lake Tahoe. An excessive heat warning was to take effect from Saturday noon until Monday evening.
The warning means “dangerously hot conditions” and temperatures approaching 100 degrees, the weather service said.
The US Forest Service predicted in an incident report that by Saturday “fire activity will increase.” “The weather will get hotter and drier with a heat wave expected this weekend,” he said.
The fire at the Beckwourth complex appeared to be the most serious of several bushfires that burned in California on Friday. “Climate change is seen as a key factor” in the state’s recent wildfire woes, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said earlier this year.
Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday called on residents on Thursday to cut water use by 15 percent amid a statewide drought and large-scale heat wave.
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