Bears and police roam empty South Lake Tahoe as town prepares for worst from Caldor Fire

South Lake Tahoe was virtually deserted early Tuesday, with only police patrols and a few bears making their way along the roadways as the Caldor Fire edged closer to the evacuated tourist town.

Police guarded the city throughout the night, rolling through parking lots where a handful of journalists and evacuees were spending the night in their cars, and driving through neighborhoods to keep looters from entering abandoned homes.

Sacramento Bee journalists who were stopped and checked for identification late Monday were told by police only a handful of people have decided to stay. With a population of 22,000 and thousands of daily visitors, South Lake Tahoe is a popular spot during the summer and winter seasons. Many people who live here work in the nearby casinos, restaurants, resorts and shops.

The quiet morning followed a hectic day that saw thousands flee as the Caldor Fire grew overnight to 191,607 acres, hours after it spilled over Echo Summit into the Lake Tahoe basin. The fire was only 16% contained, and the head of Cal Fire, Thom Porter, said it marked only the second time in recorded history that a fire had burned over both sides of the Sierra Nevada. The first was the Dixie Fire earlier this summer.

Late into the evening, the fire was menacing the communities of Christmas Valley and Meyers, just south of South Lake Tahoe. But the fire grew by only about 5,000 acres overnight.

The lack of a human population in South Lake Tahoe and Meyers offered opportunities for bears that frequent the area. Just after 6 a.m. Tuesday, a large bear could be seen pawing through the rear end of a pickup truck parked at the Loud Wedding Chapel on Lake Tahoe Boulevard.

The bear had apparently made its way along the road that leads from Stateline, Nevada, to South Lake Tahoe. Overturned trash cans at the Shell gas station and other businesses lined the roadway.

There was no sign that any businesses plan to reopen today. The McDonald’s near South Lake Tahoe from Echo Summit had a flashing open sign, but it was not. Patients have been evacuated from Barton Memorial Hospital in South Lake Tahoe, and the El Dorado Sheriff’s Office moved inmates to another facility away from the approaching fire.

Many motels that dot this resort community had “no vacancy,” “sorry,” or simply “no” signs lit up, despite the fact that their parking lots were completely empty.

The story was different across the Nevada state line where many evacuees went to spend the night along with hundreds of police officers from around the region.

The lake that makes this community so famous was barely visible early Tuesday, as a thick blanket of smoke from the Caldor Fire had settled over it. There was no visible sunrise at 6:30 a.m., just an Air Quality Index that read 500 — the maximum value on the iPhone weather app.

Driving in from Nevada had a feeling of navigating through light snow, only with flakes of ash reflecting in the headlamps a stifling haze of smoke dropping visibility along the road that rings the pristine border lake.

“You don’t want any part of that,” said a man in a Nevada Department of Transportation state employee working a roadblock.

Visibility downtown along Highway 50 is a mile or less. The El Dorado Savings Bank clock — which flashed the wrong time — said it was 44 degrees. The only other movement on the streets, aside from bears, crows and emergency vehicles: the occasional snake of ash on the road that looks like snow.

Blanket of smoke over Tahoe basin, empty streets

Inside Harrah’s casino early Tuesday, four men were playing slot machines with names such as “Treasure Ball” and “Buffalo Link” while dozens of police officers streamed up the escalators for the morning briefing.

The casino parking lots were overflowing with law-enforcement vehicles from agencies all over Northern California, including the South Lake Tahoe police, the California Highway Patrol, and the Rocklin and Folsom police departments.

In the Safeway parking lot, two boats on trailers and a camper had been left behind. And many of the homes and businesses in South Lake Tahoe had tall ladders leaning against their eaves, a move designed to give firefighters easy access to the roof if needed during a fire.

Throughout the night, the fire burned the hills along Christmas Valley, which includes a subdivision of homes along the Upper Truckee River south of the lake. Echo Summit lies directly above.

David Cochran, chief of the Reno Fire Department, posted a video at 5 a.m. Tuesday of crews working overnight to protect the Echo Summit Lodge, a hostel operated by volunteers at about 7,400 feet in elevation with views over the Lake Tahoe basin and South Lake Tahoe below.

This story was originally published August 31, 2021 at 7:18 AM.