“The day feels toxic. All those tiny pieces of ash combining to shroud Lake Tahoe, a gray miasma that warns of the megafire just eight miles from the shore. But the night. The night feels treacherous. Well after dark the Caldor fire engulfs pine trees with a crackling sound that crescendos into a roar. The flames don’t burn boughs laden with needles so much as they make them disappear with a blinding flash.” Teams are still working around the clock to save the Tahoe area from the Caldor fire. The NYT: One Night on the Fire Lines at Lake Tahoe. To put the magnitude of this year’s fires into perpective, consider this: Caldor is only the second fire in recorded history to cross from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other. The first was the Dixie. A few weeks ago.