Thousands of people have fled their homes because of a huge forest fire near the popular tourist area of ​​Lake Tahoe in the US state of California.

On Monday, the so-called "Caldor Fire" moved towards South Lake Tahoe, the most important resort in the well-known vacation area on the border between California and Nevada.

The people found themselves enveloped in thick smoke in the middle of the otherwise idyllic mountain panorama of the Sierra Nevada.

The "Caldor Fire" has been raging in northern California since mid-August and has already devastated more than 700 square kilometers and destroyed hundreds of buildings.

It spread quickly in the Eldorado National Forest.

For a week, thick billows of smoke have hung over the tourist resorts around Lake Tahoe.

"Every year now we have these fires"

"There was a knock on my door last night at 10:00 pm and I was warned to be ready," Corinne Kobel of South Lake Tahoe told the Sacramento Bee newspaper.

"This morning at 10 a.m. the police kicked us out," said the broken up Kobel.

With it, around 22,000 other people in South Lake Tahoe had been asked to leave the area.

An AFP news agency reporter witnessed a caravan of cars and RVs leaving town and clogging main roads.

Among those stuck in the street was 74-year-old Mel Smothers.

He passed the time in traffic jams playing the violin.

It was the first time the wildfires drove him away, said Smothers, who has lived in Tahoe since the 1970s.

“But it won't be the last time.

This is paradise, but you know Lake Tahoe has changed in the recent fires, ”he told AFP.

“This is how it will be from now on.

We have these fires every year now. "

Lake Tahoe is known for its clear water and beautiful mountain panorama.

The surrounding areas offer spectacular scenery, including some of the most popular winter sports in the western United States.

However, the “Caldor Fire” is just one of many fires in the entire region that overwhelm the resources of local firefighters.

Thousands of emergency responders are involved in fighting the fires that are not only raging around Lake Tahoe.

Further north, the giant Dixie Fire has devastated more than 2,800 square kilometers of land in the six weeks since it erupted.

Forest fires are not uncommon in California.

A prolonged period of drought and persistent heat, which experts say is due to climate change, has made large parts of the western United States particularly vulnerable to forest fires this year.

By the end of July, 250 percent more area had been destroyed by fires in California than in 2020. The past year was so far the worst in the recent history of the west coast state.