Caldor Fire

[jyl]

Looks like SLT mostly evacuated? Gridlock on hwy 50 today but seems like traffic has cleared now.

Echo Lake and Echo Camp being overrun today, reports of spot fires in Myers.

[Icemaster]

Been watching these thru most of the weekend, today was rough:

ALERTWildfire | Tahoe

https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=38.89741,-120.01911&z=14&b=t&o=f16a%2Cr&n=1,0.25&a=fire%2Cmodis_mp%2Cwxd_wspd-01

[hcoles]

Looking at that Caltopo map.... doesn't look good for SLT and Pioneer Trail area.
We know two people that have houses there.

[jyl]

Looking at the wind forecast, seems like when f'casted windspeed is higher, f'cast wind is coming more from the SW, and when f'casted speed is lower, f'cast wind is coming more from the S-SW. At this point I think you want SW more than S-SW.

Watching for damage reports from Echo Lake and Echo Berkeley Camp area; Echo Summit Lodge so far has survived intact per media video this am.

This is the second camp my kids have been burned out from - my daughter was a 17 y/o staffer at Berkeley Tuolume Camp (north of Groveland, south of Yosemite NP) when it burned in the 2013 Rim Fire. With ash falling and the mountainside glowing, the teenage staff were packed into cars, city trucks, and hastily requisitioned buses and rushed away, leaving most of their things. It was traumatic for them, the next year and every year since staff and former staff have returned to the site to camp and remember.

Berkeley's family camp program moved to the Berkeley Echo Camp and the kids built it from a dilapidated, dispirited youth camp to a terrific, popular family camp. My daughter went from dishwasher at Tuolume to running the whole food and dining operation at Echo, my son ran the Echo maintenance department this summer, my wife has taught art classes to campers.

After 8 years and with lots of community support, Berkeley Tuolume Camp has been rebuilt and will reopen in 2022, about the 100th anniversary of its founding. The city had expected to be running the two camps concurrently, but it now looks like Echo Camp will have to start the long rebuilding process.

In 2014 my daughter and I drove up to Yosemite, illegally entered the remnants of the Tuolume camp, and dug out a memento that survived the fire. I've saved it to mount on a plaque and return to the reopened Tuolume camp.

When the staff was evacuated from Echo Camp two weeks ago, most of them figured it was just due to smoke and that they'd be back soon to retrieve their things and close the camp up for the winter. My daughter, the only staffer left from the original Tuolume camp, warned the others to save everything they could. In the end I think they got almost all of the memorabilia and precious stuff out, stuffed into the kids' cars and city trucks. The city sent Parks staff and city firefighters up to prepare and defend Echo Camp , but they had to pull out yesterday, with spot fires burning right across the road from the camp. So now we wait for news and to find out if we'll need to do another retrieval trip next year.

[masraum]

What are the evacuations like?

After Katrina, "they" were predicting that Rita was going to be a direct hit on Houston, so we evacuated, along with every other person in the Houston metro area. We went to my parents' place in the panhandle of FL. It normally took us 8-9 hours to drive to my parents' place when on vacation with stops for gas, food, etc.... It took us 16-17 hours to get to my parents place, and the first 8 hours of that was to get from our house to the east edge of Houston on I10.

I know that there were folks that spent ~24 hours getting to the Dallas area which is a 4-5 hour drive under normal circumstances.

[jyl]

Originally Posted by masraum

What are the evacuations like?

After Katrina, "they" were predicting that Rita was going to be a direct hit on Houston, so we evacuated, along with every other person in the Houston metro area. We went to my parents' place in the panhandle of FL. It normally took us 8-9 hours to drive to my parents' place when on vacation with stops for gas, food, etc.... It took us 16-17 hours to get to my parents place, and the first 8 hours of that was to get from our house to the east edge of Houston on I10.

I know that there were folks that spent ~24 hours getting to the Dallas area which is a 4-5 hour drive under normal circumstances.

Surprisingly, SLT seems to have evacuated pretty smoothly. As far as I can tell.

There was only one road out, Hwy 50 E through Stateline and then up around the east side of the lake, from whence you had to go east to Reno or north through Truckee. Hwy 50 W was closed by the fire, Hwy 89 N around the west side of the lake was closed, I think the Hwy 89 S / Hwy 88 W route was closed or at least very discouraged as the fire was very close to it.

There were apparently epic traffic backups, 5+ miles long, on Hwy 50 E, for much of yesterday. But by the evening, media reports and traffic cameras showed the road completely empty. So bravo to SLT folks - I assume the tourists, second-home'ers had already left by then, so the permanent residents were able to leave in non-disastrous manner. Mass shelters have opened in Carson City and Reno.

The Nevada side of the lake is starting to issue evacuation notices and warnings. That is far fewer people than SLT so I think it should go pretty smoothly.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by jyl

Surprisingly, SLT seems to have evacuated pretty smoothly. As far as I can tell.

There was only one road out, Hwy 50 E through Stateline and then up around the east side of the lake, from whence you had to go east to Reno or north through Truckee. Hwy 50 W was closed by the fire, Hwy 89 N around the west side of the lake was closed, I think the Hwy 89 S / Hwy 88 W route was closed or at least very discouraged as the fire was very close to it.

There were apparently epic traffic backups, 5+ miles long, on Hwy 50 E, for much of yesterday. But by the evening, media reports and traffic cameras showed the road completely empty. So bravo to SLT folks - I assume the tourists, second-home'ers had already left by then, so the permanent residents were able to leave in non-disastrous manner. Mass shelters have opened in Carson City and Reno.

The Nevada side of the lake is starting to issue evacuation notices and warnings. That is far fewer people than SLT so I think it should go pretty smoothly.

Excellent. I assume it may also have something to do with the population of the area. Houston was evacuating millions of people while I assume that area is evacuating maybe only thousands. And since the drill isn't new, they may have already started to some extent.

[vash]

fingers crossed for the area.

anyone checking in on Moses? he has a new home there, right? i wish him the best.

evacuations were to Nevada right?

[tdw28210]

Family member relocated Reno two weeks ago. Not loving their decision at the moment. Sending prayers/positive energy to all in harm's way.

[jyl]

22K full time residents in SLT, despite the city being sized for 100K+ in tourist season. Reading ppl sat in the jams for 4+ hours to go 5+ miles, but that’s lot better than I’d feared.

Just saw a reporter’s video driving through the Echo summit area. Incredibly, Echo Camp appears mostly intact, the main building and all the structures visible from the road are still there, most of the private cabins on that road survived, Echo Lake lodge, marina and the cabins there survived, Echo Summit lodge survived. Video didn’t show any significant remaining fire activity and lots of firefighters and trucks in the area. Fire damage appears to have been mercifully patchy up on Echo. So far - don’t know if another wave of fire coming or if the fire front has passed. Looks really windy up there so fingers still tightly crossed.

Downslope of Hwy 50, Strawberry structures all or almost all saved per reports. Sierra At Tahoe ski resort all structures saved, they used snow making machines to fight the fire. But reports lot of cabins burned around ski resort and up the south side of Echo. Going further west, not heard anything about Kyburz but mapping showed fire front overran it some days ago.

In the camp, I know that the maintenance staff - my son’s team this summer - always kept the brush and debris cleared as much as they could, and like I mentioned the city had crews of Parks and FD up there cutting and clearing fuel in advance of the fire’s arrival.

Seeing more news video of Echo. Still hotspots burning, firefighters actively working them. Not out of the woods but so far the news is better than feared.

[jyl]

Originally Posted by vash

fingers crossed for the area.

anyone checking in on Moses? he has a new home there, right? i wish him the best.

evacuations were to Nevada right?

I think mostly to NV. Could also go north and then west to Sacramento.

[ckissick]

Originally Posted by vash

fingers crossed for the area.

anyone checking in on Moses? he has a new home there, right? i wish him the best.

evacuations were to Nevada right?

I think his house is near Truckee, far to the north and out of danger.

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by ckissick

I think his house is near Truckee, far to the north and out of danger.

Yeah, he is on the other end of the lake

[jyl]

Evacuation orders for the NV side now, from Stateline to a little below Zephyr Cove, and along Kingsbury grade.

Excluding casino core. Either they are fairly confident of being able to defend the casino core (not much trees/fuel there?) or no-one lives there anyway and they are using the casinos to stage and support firefighters.

[biosurfer1]

I was happy to see Sierra at Tahoe ski resort was mostly ok....crazy to see the pictures fr their webcams with the fire raging in the background. They had a private fire crew supplied by their insurance company that really helped. They had all their snow making machines aimed at the lodge and other buildings drenching them...seemed to work

[jyl]

Heavenly is doing the snow machine thing now too, in preparation.

[biosurfer1]

Originally Posted by jyl

Heavenly is doing the snow machine thing now too, in preparation.

I got to say, I saw an interview with the manager of Sierra at Tahoe and it sure sounds like the ski resort community is a close knit one. He mentioned that when it looked like the fire was advancing towards them, he immediately had calls from other resorts close by, offering equipment, dozers, supplies, extra snow making machines, staff to help prepare, and use of their parking lots to store sensitive equipment away from the fire.

And now that the fire has mostly passed by Sierra, he redirected all that help, as well as his own, to Heavenly which is now in the crosshairs.

Nice to see the community coming together!

[craigster59]

Originally Posted by vash

fingers crossed for the area.

anyone checking in on Moses? he has a new home there, right? i wish him the best.

evacuations were to Nevada right?

I saw lowyder post on FB that the smoke was really bad down in Gardnerville Nv. I think he was safe but bugging out for clearer skies.