English: The largest blazes burned in Northern California, most notably the Caldor and Dixie fires, which together have scorched nearly 1 million acres (1,500 square miles) so far. Smoke from the Caldor fire near Lake Tahoe is visible in this image, acquired on the afternoon of August 30, 2021, with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Between ignition on August 14 and the time of the image, the fire had burned more than 170,000 acres. The fire perimeter was 14 percent contained as of August 31. The Caldor fire spread rapidly amid dry and gusty conditions, prompting officials to expand mandatory evacuation orders to the Tahoe Basin, including South Lake Tahoe, a lakeside city of nearly 22,000 people. According to news reports, Caldor is only the second-known fire to have crested the ridge of the Sierra Nevada, burning from one side to the other. It follows the Dixie fire, which crossed over the ridge earlier in the month.