Caldor Fire’s march toward Tahoe slows but danger remains
CARSON CITY — The raging Caldor Fire’s gallop toward South Lake Tahoe, its namesake lake and the Nevada border eased overnight and throughout the day Wednesday, with the fire still swelling to nearly 208,000 acres but containment also increasing to 23 percent, according to the fire team’s late afternoon update.
Winds that drove the fire’s explosive growth over the past week began to slacken in a trend that should continue the rest of the week, fire officials said at a community briefing Wednesday afternoon.
“We’re still going to have dry conditions, humidity is going to be low, but we’re not going to have the wind tomorrow, and getting into Friday, the winds get even lighter,” incident meteorologist Jim Dudley said. “Friday is a very, very light wind day across the entire fire. So the issues and conditions that weather was causing, especially for the last couple of days, are going to be mitigated by much lighter winds across the fire.”
The Caldor Fire remained roughly 3 miles south of the recently evacuated city of South Lake Tahoe, moving northeast toward the California-Nevada line, said Henry Herrera, a battalion chief for the agency, which is also known as Cal Fire.
Crews tried desperately to keep flames away from urban communities, where houses are close together and shopping centers, hotels and other structures would provide even more fuel for a fire that so far has been feeding on trees, grasses and scattered homes and cabins.
“We’re still not out of the woods. The fire is still moving,” Herrera said.
On the fire’s western flank, officials rolled back some area evacuation orders to warnings, which would allow residents to return. On the eastern flank, fire teams were looking to build a containment line on the California side of the state line with Douglas County, Nevada.
“There is a chance that this is going to be our containment feature that we’re looking at in the future,” said Beale Monday of the U.S. Forest Service’s National Incident Management Organization, adding that the fire team was keeping the footprint of operations there small.
“As you know, if you’re from here, this is some steep rugged and nasty country, and it’s just not safe in a lot of it to put our firefighters up there in that stuff,” Monday said. “You probably have knee-high, waist-high grass. There’s brush. It’s just real volatile fuels. As dry as things are right now, it’s super-explosive and fire spread is rapid, so we’re really watching that and we’re making sure we don’t get any of our folks overcommitted with the amount of fire behavior that we’re seeing up here.”
Fire continues to grow
Nearly 4,400 firefighters and other personnel are working to contain a fire that has swelled to 325 square miles since it started Aug. 14. Flames have destroyed hundreds of structures and forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate as the fire continues to threaten the pristine alpine lake that is a year-round magnet for tourism and an emerald jewel of the Sierra Nevada range.
The joint fire response team said late Wednesday that nearly 600 homes had been destroyed along with 185 other structures, with another 44 structures damaged and more than 32,000 threatened. Five injuries have been reported — three first responders and two civilians.
Late Tuesday, the fire was just over the border from Stateline, Nevada, with active sections to the northeast toward Douglas County. Fires also threatened the south Tahoe ski resort areas of Heavenly and Kirkwood. As flames moved toward the Heavenly ski resort, officials turned on the mountain’s snow-making machines to increase humidity and slow down any flames.
Evacuation orders were put in place Tuesday night for the Douglas County communities of Upper, Central and Lower Kingsbury, the Round Hill region and roads including Lower Elks Point, Lake Village, Lower Olivers, and Kahle Drive region and roads.
Evacuation centers opened in Carson City, Gardnerville in Douglas County, and in Reno; two were reported full as of Wednesday afternoon. By midafternoon Wednesday, Red Cross workers and volunteers were setting up cots and making other preparations to receive evacuees at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, where about 50 people waited to enter.
Nevada casino regulators said gambling was suspended at the Hard Rock Lake Tahoe, MontBleu Resort, Harrah’s and Harvey’s Lake Tahoe, where officials said their casinos were closed to the public but their hotels were housing firefighters and displaced employees.
Some opting to stay
The MontBleu was one of the hotels allowing non-first responder guests to stay, but they were told before checking in that the situation was fluid and they could be asked to leave at any time.
That time came Wednesday morning as hotel staff began telling guests that they had to leave by the end of the day.
“The safety of our team members and customers has always been, and continues to be, our highest priority,” the resort said in a statement. “Given this, later today we will close the MontBleu Resort Casino to the public. MontBleu will continue to provide housing and support to team member evacuees and firefighters working hard to contain the Caldor Fire, as well as remain in constant communication with the Stateline fire department.”
South Lake Tahoe resident Jillian Kohlstrom and her daughter Anastasia were sitting outside the resort waiting to be picked up by a shuttle shortly after learning they had to leave Wednesday.
“We live by the casinos and I don’t have a car so we came over and set up at MontBleu,” Kohlstrom said. “They came to the door this morning and told us that the fire department wanted us to leave.”
Kohlstrom said she and her daughter are heading to Reno, where they will stay with friends until it’s safe to return to the area. Anastasia was told she would be out of school until at least Sept. 13.
“It’s gonna be hard; our income is here,” Kohlstrom said. “We have no income, no nothing, so it’s going to be rough for a while.”
Bay Area couple Jim and Alicia Halloran arrived in the area Tuesday night with their dog, Billy Budd the Sailor. The Hallorans originally planned to arrive Wednesday for a week-and-a-half vacation, but that turned into a frantic trip to check on their second home in nearby Meyers, California.
“We came up here. Our house down the road, our second home, is very close to burning down,” Jim Halloran said. “We booked a room at the Hard Rock and there were all kinds of road closures and all kinds of challenges. I said we’ve gotta try. If the house is going to burn down we felt it was more important that we were here.”
The Hallorans said they feel grateful now that it appears their house is going to be OK, but they feel bad for those who are full-time residents in the area.
“In life the glass is half full, the glass is half empty, or do you even have a glass,” Jim Halloran said. “So, we have a glass and we’re fortunate, super-fortunate. So, the hotel saying we had to leave was a little bit of a burden, but nothing compared to some of the other folks who’ve got their lives in the back of their trucks.”
Contact Capital Bureau reporter Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DentzerNews on Twitter. Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter. The Associated Press contributed to this report.