Forced to flee: 22,000 ordered to leave South Lake Tahoe
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — The Caldor Fire roared through drought-dried timber as it headed toward South Lake Tahoe Monday, reaching into the basin and forcing the city’s 22,000 residents to evacuate.
The mass exodus clogged roads and brought traffic to a standstill for hours. By evening the roads were clear, and South Lake Tahoe was deserted, with the glow of oncoming flame visible from the shoreline.
On the fire’s east side, flames jumped Highway 88 and burned toward the Kirkwood ski resort. They scorched the west side of Thunder Mountain near the resort, between Silver Lake and Caples Lake, said Cal Fire Assistant Chief Brian Newman.
Firefighters prepared for the possibility that Caldor, fueled by fast winds and critically dry vegetation, could extend further toward South Lake Tahoe, threatening homes and businesses in the city. But crews benefited Monday by slower than expected winds in the basin, Newman said.
Just 15% of the 186,568-acre blaze was contained, Cal Fire reported Monday night. It torched more than 10,000 acres coming into Monday morning as it headed up Highway 50, breaching the summit at several locations, only the second time in state history that a wildfire burned from one side of the Sierra to the other. The
first was the Dixie Fire, which started earlier this month, had burned 771,741 acres and was 48% contained.
“There is fire activity in California we’ve never seen before,” Cal Fire Chief Thom Porter said at a briefing Monday.
Spot fires were already igniting over the summit near Echo Lake and below Echo Summit.
“There is fire in the basin,” the area that naturally drains into Lake Tahoe, Porter said, confirming what Lake Tahoe residents and homeowners feared for days. “It’s time to start going.”
Nearly 300 square miles of forest land has burned in the two weeks since the fire started, torching nearly the entire town of Grizzly Flats and blackening hills for miles along Highway 50. Pollock Pines and Strawberry were largely saved.
The Caldor Fire has turned a 50-mile picturesque stretch of highway into an apocalyptic landscape of charred trees, piles of ash and twisted metal where cabins stood.
The possibility the fire could burn into South Lake Tahoe or the surrounding area seemed surreal to fleeing residents and the untold generations of Californians and out-of-state visitors who spend their vacations on the slopes or at the shore.
Lisa Quick, 56, a South Lake Tahoe resident of 28 years, said fleeing her home with her family and two dogs was “horrible” and “terrifying.”
She feared what the Caldor Fire would do to her home and her community.
“I don’t just live here,” she said. “This town is part of who I am.”
Officials said the evacuation was orderly and followed a coordinated plan, and delays on roadways were not unexpected. By late afternoon, the flow out was steadier.
But not everyone hurried to the head of the line.
As dust swirled in the empty streets of South Lake Tahoe early Monday evening, Christine and William Smith seemed the only souls left in their Gardner Mountain neighborhood near the lake’s southern tip, where highways 50 and 89 meet.
They were headed out, in vehicles loaded up with bikes, hitched to boats, and packed with the stuff of their lives.
“I feel like the firefighters are going to protect our neighborhood, but you just don’t know. They can’t make a miracle,” Christine Smith said.
So William Smith cleared their roof of pine needles and anything else that might catch fired, and he soaked the wood fence with water.
They would aim for Santa Cruz, where they have family, but stop first at the Crazy Good Bakery in town. They own it.
“I’m cautiously optimistic, but the fire is just over that hill,” William Smith said, gesturing toward Fallen Leaf Lake.
The Caldor Fire has destroyed hundreds of homes in El Dorado County and threatened 21,000 more as it headed east Lake Tahoe and south toward the Amador County line.
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One evacuee was Shaunte Dittmar, who fled her studio near Christmas Valley, about 15 miles south of Lake Tahoe, with her cat Rasta. But they didn’t go far — just a bit east, up to Tahoe’s Lakeside Beach near the Nevada border.
There, blue skies and sunshine cast an idyllic glow over the open water that belied the thick blanket of gray smoke creeping closer over the mountains. Breweries and sportinggoods stores that would normally be packed with hikers, bikers and beachgoers sat empty.
This is the first time in 11 years that Dittmar has had to evacuate due to fire, but she was calm after packing up her skis and sleeping in her Subaru Sunday night.
“I mean, it’s mountain life. With everything going on, there’s no point getting all worked up,” said Dittmar, whose photography business has been upended by the pandemic.
Recently, things have been looking up as more couples have rescheduled their weddings. But now, as Dittmar debated whether to head to Nevada or the Bay Area next, she couldn’t resist the pull of the peaceful stretch of beach where she’d photographed a wedding in less complicated times.
“I just thought to come to the lake,” she said.
As the fire pushed forward 8½ miles over the weekend, officials called it a “wake-up call” for what was in store this week.
“The firefighting conditions, the fuels, are historic,” Cal Fire Incident Commander Jeff Veik, said in a staff briefing Monday. “We will put this fire out. It’s not going to be today.”
Near the summit, Berkeley firefighters attempted to protect the City of Berkeley’s Echo Lake Camp, which has hosted families and youth camps for decades. Mayor Jesse Arreguin reported Monday afternoon that spot fires had reached the camp, and crews were forced to retreat.
“Weather conditions and the nature of this fire are dire,” he said in a social media post. “Too early to know outcome.”
While officials hoped that the blaze could be stopped before it reached Echo Summit, winds continued pushing the flames forward.
Weather conditions were expected to worsen, with a red flag warning in effect until 11 p.m. Wednesday, with winds pushing the fire uphill and embers lighting spot fires up to a mile ahead of the main blaze.
For communities near the south shore of Lake Tahoe, the main concern were fast winds casting embers far ahead of the main blaze.
Should an ember land in vegetation, chances of ignition were extremely high, given the parched fuels and low humidity, said Jason Hunter, a Cal Fire information officer.
Officials first issued an evacuation warning for all of South Lake Tahoe on Sunday night. Just before 10 a.m. Monday, mandatory evacuations were in place for Meyers and several parts of South Lake Tahoe. By noon, the whole city was told to empty out.
At the Tahoe Verde mobile home park on the southwest side of South Lake Tahoe, Erick Hurtado, 17, and his father, Hugo Hernandez, 34, prepared to evacuate Monday morning.
Standing in front of his home holding his white 1-yearold Chihuahua, Bun Bun, Hurtado said he was staying levelheaded as they were ordered to flee.
“It’s just one of those things that, if you stay calm, it helps everyone, and you can get a plan together,” Hurtado said, adding his family planned to find safety in Nevada.
Meanwhile, Christina Ingram was in Fallon, Nev., tried to contact her grandfather, whom she believed had evacuated to the mobile home park from his home in Meyers just south of the city.
Speaking by phone, she became emotional thinking of the threat that the Caldor Fire poses to his home — and to the broader Tahoe region.
“That’s the last thing I would want, is for his house to go,” Ingram said. “It’s not just this fire. It’s been fire after fire. It feels like they can’t get a break.”
Those fleeing the blaze headed for hotels or rooms at the homes of friends or relatives. Others landed at evacuation shelters in Truckee and other communities including those in neighboring Nevada.
Nadia Beals, a 32-year-old resident of Tahoe Keys, pulled over at a gas station, hoping to refuel her pickup truck before heading to Reno. She had only a quarter tank of gas.
She tried to start the transaction, but the pump quickly canceled it. Then, for a moment, it appeared to start working, then canceled again.
Beals struggled to process the enormity of what was happening, as a steady line of evacuees inched forward. A sheriff ’s deputy told her she might not be allowed back home for a week.
“I’m still trying to wake up from this nightmare,” Beals said before driving away without the gas. “It just feels so unreal.”
In nearby Stateline, Nev., casinos were shrouded in wildfire smoke, obscuring the area’s natural surroundings as a gloomy red sun rose over Lake Tahoe Monday morning. Cars streamed steadily out of town on Highway 50 as residents left South Lake Tahoe just across the California border.
All national forests in the state remain closed through at least Sept. 6,
J.D. Morris, Lauren Hepler, Julie Johnson and Jill Tucker are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com; lauren.hepler@sfchronicle.com; julie.johnson@sfchronicle.com; jtucker@sfchronicle.com