Mimi Routh, 79, unloads a suitcase from her car after being evacuated from the Tahoe Senior Plaza to a shelter in nearby Gardnerville, Nevada. Kirk Siegler / NPR
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Kirk Siegler / NPR
Mimi Routh, 79, unloads a suitcase from her car after being evacuated from Tahoe Senior Plaza to a shelter in nearby Gardnerville, New York.
Kirk Siegler / NPR
When Mimi Routh received orders to evacuate from Tahoe Senior Plaza, where she lives, she decided not to wait for the city bus, like most of her neighbors who were also fleeing the flames of the runaway Caldor Fire.
Instead, the 79-year-old Air Force veteran decided to leave on her own. She grabbed some essentials and drove herself to a Nevada animal shelter about twenty miles away.
Routh is one of approximately 50,000 people who have been evacuated in the Tahoe area since the fire started. The mass exodus, coupled with the unfavorable weather conditions that have made it difficult to contain the fire for weeks, mean that shelters fill up and hotel rooms are difficult to find and expensive. The COVID restrictions have also limited the number of people that can be housed in a given shelter.
Routh tells NPR she is grateful to have found a safe place at the Red Cross animal shelter at Douglas County Community Center in Gardnerville, Nevada, New York, 55 miles north.
“It was a big shock,” she says, speaking through an N95 mask and protecting her eyes from the ominous, orange, smoke-darkened sun after a mostly sleepless night.
Firefighters work to put out a point fire in front of the main wall of flames of the Caldor Fire near South Lake Tahoe. Kirk Siegler / NPR hide caption
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Kirk Siegler / NPR
Firefighters work to put out a point fire in front of the main wall of flames of the Caldor Fire near South Lake Tahoe.
Kirk Siegler / NPR
“One of my neighbors was next to me in the bed next door,” she explains. “He was talking and coughing and people were walking on the gym boards.”
Routh is exhausted and unwell, but glad she’s allowed to stay for the time being.
“I assume it will take a couple of weeks,” she estimates.
Meanwhile, there are more new worries: “We’re looking at how to do laundry, you know, things for a living.”
Evacuees struggle with insecurity
All over the shelter, people look stressed and exhausted, wondering what their future holds.
Among them is Gayle Wedgewood, who says this is the first time she has been evacuated from a fire in Tahoe in more than two decades of her life. She had intended to ride it out, but then the winds turned and the Caldor Fire ran toward the Nevada side of the lake, triggering further evacuations.
She and a friend stayed at the shelter for a couple of nights, but Wedgwood tells NPR that they are about to leave because they can’t bring their dogs with them. She hopes to find a hotel.
“The nice thing is that we are not in a mountain community where there are no services,” she says, focusing on a tiny ray of hope in an otherwise gloomy situation. “I forgot a few things at home and could go to Walmart and pick them up in a minute, so no problem.”
Bill Erlach, chief of the Reno Fire Battalion, says point fires near densely populated neighborhoods remain a top concern of the Caldor Fire. Kirk Siegler / NPR hide caption
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Kirk Siegler / NPR
Bill Erlach, chief of the Reno Fire Battalion, says point fires near densely populated neighborhoods remain a top concern of the Caldor Fire.
Kirk Siegler / NPR
A fire chief is hoping for a major change in the weather, but may have to wait for weeks
The fire has raged for 19 days, at which point the firefighters can only try to keep the flames from burning entire neighborhoods.
Bill Erlach, a battalion chief for Reno Fire, says the land around South Lake Tahoe remains dangerously dry and flammable.
Some of his crew mobilized to fight the Caldor Fire directly from the nearby Dixie Fire – the second largest forest fire ever recorded in California. It is clear that they are tired and under tremendous strain, Erlach notes.
“You can see some people get a little tired,” he says, adding that he is reminding them to take breaks.
“We are enough. You can take time out, take care of yourself and we will take care of you too, because we have to determine ourselves,” he tells them.
This week they wiped away hot spots from a small point fire that broke out off the main flank and ignited near a subdivision in the forest. Meanwhile, a frontline helicopter dropped water onto a steep granite slope in a canyon near South Lake Tahoe. Towering pines above it had gone up in flames.
Erlach says the fire won’t be slowed down until there is a major change in the weather. That said, it could be weeks or more before thousands of people can even try going home.
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