Smoke from Mariposa fire chokes Tahoe Basin, creates apocalyptic sunset at the lake

Smoke from a wildfire burning in Mariposa County blew into the Tahoe Basin and created a spectacular sunset. South Lake Tahoe photographer Kurt Rix of Amazing Imagery captured the photo on July 19, 2017. Smoke from a wildfire burning in Mariposa County blew into the Tahoe Basin and created a spectacular sunset. South Lake Tahoe photographer Kurt Rix of Amazing Imagery captured the photo on July 19, 2017. Photo: Kurt Rix / Amazing Imagery Photo: Kurt Rix / Amazing Imagery Image 1 of / 65 Caption Close Smoke from Mariposa fire chokes Tahoe Basin, creates apocalyptic sunset at the lake 1 / 65 Back to Gallery

Smoke from the raging wildfire in Mariposa County turned the sky over the Tahoe Basin a shockingly bright reddish orange last night, creating a dramatic scene worthy of a dystopian film.

Kurt Rix, a professional photographer based in South Lake, has lived in Tahoe for 15 years and captured thousands of sunsets with his camera and says last night's show was surreal.

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"Tahoe sunsets are always spectacular," Rix says. "The color is always vibrant and brilliant, but last night was almost apocalyptic. It was almost as if it was radioactive, like being in a microwave. But knowing the cause made it less beautiful."

The Detwiler Fire burning west of Yosemite National Park grew to 70,000 acres Thursday morning, ripping through the grasslands and forests of California's Gold Country. The fast-moving blaze that started Sunday has produced massive amounts of smoke. Satellite imagery shows that smoke from the wildfire has spread more than 500 miles away to Boise, Idaho, according to the National Weather Service.

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The smoke blanketed the Tahoe Basin, the Reno area and the Carson Valley on Wednesday, creating unhealthy to hazardous air quality conditions. On Thursday, the haze in western Nevada had improved slightly but the unhealthy designation remained for the Carson Valley.

"Visibility in Reno right now is 10 miles," says Chris Johnston, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Reno. "It's hazy here, but you can see Mount Rose today and Slide Mountain. Yesterday, we couldn't even see halfway to the airport."

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Johnston expects Tahoe will get another spectacular sunset tonight, but possibly not quite as electric.

He says the smoke plume is currently narrow, not nearly as massive as yesterday and traveling on the west side of the Sierra on a north-northwest path along the Sierra in the area of Buck Meadows, Arnold, Big Trees, Bear Valley, and Pollock Pines.

The Bay Area has yet to see any impact from the smoke as the winds are blowing from the west off the coast and moving inland.

"It looks like we're going to continue with our typical onshore flow, where we get the fog in the morning and a sea breeze in the afternoon and this keeps the smoke away," says Tom Flannigan, a PIO with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.