California has already been plagued by, among other things, the Dixie fire, which was the largest in the state's history.
Flames are now engulfing the next part of the state, closer to the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Thousands of people rushed to get out of South Lake Tahoe when the entire tourist resort was subjected to evacuation orders and a wildfire burned against the large freshwater lake Lake Tahoe, which stretches across California and Nevada.
This is reported by Reuters.
Evacuation warnings issued for the resort with 22,000 residents on Sunday turned into an order on Monday.
Vehicles loaded with bicycles and camping equipment and tugboats drove through thick, brown air that smelled of campfire.
Police and other emergency vehicles whizzed by.
"This is a systematic evacuation, one neighborhood at a time," Travis Cabral, a South Lake Tahoe police officer, wrote on social media.
Hospital patients were forced to evacuate
The new orders come a day after communities several miles south of the lake were suddenly ordered evacuated when the Caldor fire broke out nearby.
South Lake Tahoe's main medical facility, Barton Memorial Hospital, evacuated 52 patients, 16 of them in emergency beds, on Sunday and placed them in regional facilities far from the fire, said Chief Information Officer Mindi Befu.
The rest of the hospital evacuated after Monday's extended order.
Natural paradise in flames
The entire Lake Tahoe area of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is a recreational paradise for locals in the San Francisco Bay Area looking for a weekend getaway, as well as a national destination.
The area offers beaches, water sports, hiking, ski resorts and golf.
Tamara Wallace, mayor of the area, did not think the Caldor fire would come so close.
- This is just another example of how forest fires have changed over the years.
It's just the culmination of another 14-18 years of dead trees and drought, she says.
In addition to forest, the fire destroyed several homes along Highway 50.