Digging in:
Retired firefighter was one of 38 people who didn’t evacuate South Lake Tahoe in the face of the Caldor Fire.
Californians are getting the message. When a wildfire comes close, get out when the sheriff orders you to go.
South Lake Tahoe and the surrounding South Shore communities emptied into ghost towns Monday as the Caldor Fire crept closer to town. About 22,000 residents left in a briefly logjammed but ultimately successful evacuation. Deputies and police went door-to-door and found only 38 individuals stayed behind, officials said.
One of those stalwarts was Scott Swift, a retired firefighter who has lived in the South Lake Tahoe area most of his life.
Swift was on the fire line at the historically devastating 1991 Oakland Hills Fire and, closer to home, the 2007 Angora Fire that burned only about 3,100 acres but destroyed about 250 structures, including homes in the subdivisions nestled east of Fallen Leaf Lake.
Swift, 63, said he knows the evacuation orders for the Caldor Fire included him.
He also said he knows what signs to look for indicating he should flee and not fight — the wind, the smoke, a certain pace of spot fires — and he hasn’t seen them coming toward his home. It’s come close. But not yet.
“I have the knowledge of the area. I have the skill to do the work,” Swift said. “I was concerned, I was ready to go. But I want to make a stand if it comes to that.”
He lives in the Chiapa subdivision outside Meyers in a house he built. It’s where he and his wife raised their two sons.
He spent 35 years with the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which is responsible for about 80 square miles covering a patchwork of communities surrounding South Lake Tahoe. Much of the territory has been in the Caldor Fire’s path or directly threatened by it.
Swift, who retired as a captain in 2013, has 3inch fire hose hooked up and staged around his house. He has a fire hydrant connected to a storage tank that holds 500,000 gallons of water.
He got to work preparing to defend his property as soon as the Caldor Fire got to Strawberry to the south, felling trees in the backyard near the swing set where his children — now young adults — once played.
He chopped down the scrub oak.
He monitored radio channels and kept in touch with people — firefighters on the lines, many his former workmates, longtime friends, others in his community. Swift remarked how in his 51 years in South Lake Tahoe, the city has increasingly filled with tourists and visitors. Many locals left, but those who remain are tight.
He recalled listening to radio traffic late Sunday and early Monday when the Caldor Fire crossed the ridge near Highway 50 and began burning toward the Philips Tract and into Christmas Valley. He and a friend sat outside in lawn chairs, monitoring the situation throughout the night, ready to fight or leave.
At that point, it seemed to be mostly local firefighters standing at the ready: Lake Valley, South Lake Tahoe, Meeks Bay, Fallen Leaf and other local districts.
“They did an amazing job,” Swift said. “I almost want to tear up.”
Swift does choke up talking about the bravery he said he witnessed — ear to the radio — as his comrades faced such a big fire hitting so close to home.
Driving through Christmas Valley later, he was even more overcome by the sight: charred, forested hillsides on either side of that residential subdivision. The fires had been stopped in the backyards of homes.
“You can’t appreciate it until you see how it came down both sides,” Swift said.
But the sight of the fire on a close ridge, where wind could easily carry an ember to his rooftop, didn’t change his mind about trying to defend his own home, even though those evacuation orders “absolutely apply to me,” Swift said.
He has the decades of experience, the hoses, the water, a designated safe zone in the broad intersection at the corner of his property.
As the winds calmed and humidity rose Thursday, allowing firefighters to slow the Caldor Fire, Swift was right where he’d been all week: at home, ready for a fight that he hopes never comes, but realistic.
“I have the talent,” Swift said. “But I know when the fire comes, you can run out of talent.”