Uncontrolled Caldor Fire closes in on Lake Tahoe
With exit routes limited, traffic slows to a snarl, making for a 4-mile long evacuation gridlock as wildfire approaches
Marley Reel and Bill Kennessey stood outside their neighboring South Lake Tahoe businesses Monday afternoon debating how to get out of town as they peered at gridlocked traffic on Highway 50 that hadn’t moved for an hour.
Both men had readied evacuation bags weeks ago but hoped the flames from the growing Caldor Fire wouldn’t get close enough that they would have to use them.
“It feels pretty crazy that it’s actually happening and they’re actually evacuating all of the south shore,” Reel said, packing up Phish concert posters, bikes and documents from his screenprinting business. “But I get it. It’s out of control.”
The race to flee South Lake Tahoe with flames from the Caldor Fire just 7 miles away created a traffic nightmare for hours Monday as thousands of residents and visitors were ordered to leave the famed resort city with only one main evacuation route open.
Although the traffic eventually cleared by about 5 p.m. Monday, eastbound Highway 50 — the road running along the lake’s south shore toward Nevada — was jammed with bumper-to-bumper traffic for most of the day as a stream of cars and trucks left the city, laden with boxes, boats, mattresses and bikes. Some sat in their cars frustrated and worried about their lack
of progress while others, such as Mel Smothers of South Lake Tahoe, tried to lighten the mood by playing the violin outside of his vehicle.
Meanwhile, on the west side of the lake, the California Highway Patrol early Monday had blocked off northbound traffic on Highway 89 to prevent those leaving South Lake Tahoe from going into another part of the evacuation zone, which was news to at least four evacuees who waited hours in line before being told to turn around.
“It’s our second trip here and we just want to get out,” one woman called as she clambered back in her truck and threw up her hands.
“This is ridiculous,” said a man who had jumped out of his car to approach officers to no avail.
Despite the exasperation, law enforcement officials said they had anticipated the logjam given the few key routes in and out of South Lake Tahoe and that’s why they made the evacuation order Monday morning just 12 hours after first issuing a warning.
“This is something that we did expect, which is why we started the evacuation phase the way we did,” Officer Travis Cabral of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department said in an update on Instagram. “… I understand the frustration and I know it’s hard to sit there but we’re monitoring everything closely.”
Carbal said they were keeping traffic open in both directions on Highway 50 for firefighters and emergency responders to get into the area. But he said that officials had a “contingency plan” to open all lanes to eastbound traffic if needed.
Kimberly Peterson, director of housing at the Tahoe Coalition for the
Homeless, stood in front of the El Nido Motel, where residents gathered before evacuating. The organization’s 60 residents are heading to locations like a shelter in Gardnerville, Nevada, and a Motel 6 in Sacramento.
“We were hoping to beat this rush,” she said. “It is what it is.”
As of Monday, the fire had burned more than 177,000 acres and was 14% contained, according to Cal Fire. More than 50,000 residents, including 22,000 in South Lake Tahoe, have been ordered to evacuate El Dorado County. Placer County, which spans the north side of the lake, had not issued any evacuation orders as of Monday evening. The mandatory evacuation zone now extends from near Tahoma off Highway 89 on the southwest side of the lake around to Stateline on the Nevada border.
Sgt. Eric Palmberg of the El Dorado Sheriff’s Office said Monday afternoon
that he felt the evacuation was going “pretty well,” given the circumstances.
“You kind of have to look at Tahoe, in general, with only so many roads in and out, and it’s quite a highly-populated area, so that was definitely one of the factors in making the evacuation order when we did,” he said. “I hope we made these evacuations as a precaution and that they weren’t really needed, but it’s always better to err on the side of caution.”
Reel, who lived through the 2007 Angora Fire, which burned more than 200 homes in the area, teared up as he contemplated the potential for the Caldor Fire to do even more damage to the Tahoe Basin this time around.
“We have something so cool here and so special — I don’t want to lose that,” he said. “I know that fires are bad, but you never think they’re gonna be massive to the point where they’re this big.”