‘We Do It Together’: How the Lake Tahoe community prepared to escape the Kaldor fire | Forest fires

[ad_1]

There is only one way out of the Golden Bear neighborhood of South Lake Tahoe, and as the flames approached the Kaldor Fire Monday, it could easily have turned into a disaster.

But when the neighborhood caught fire, a group of a few hundred homes tucked away in the pine-covered mountainside near the famous Lake California, residents didn’t panic. They packed up.

“On our street we were all evacuated within 10 to 15 minutes of receiving the call,” said resident Donara Reynolds. She and her husband left with their dogs, Marley and Marilyn, hours before the main brides were choked with thousands of vehicles ordered to evacuate the city as the fire approached.

“We got the mandatory evacuation and everyone was ready,” Reynolds said Tuesday from an area outside Sacramento. “Everyone collected their things quietly and we did not encounter any traffic at all.”

The Kaldor Fire had burned more than 204,000 acres by Wednesday morning, and was only 20% contained. Hot, dry conditions continue to complicate firefighting efforts as high winds fanned the flames down the canyons and closer to communities in South Lake Tahoe below. Nearly 35,000 buildings remain under threat, including those in the Golden Bear District.

But Reynolds and her neighbors have been preparing for that for years. The Golden Bear community became the first South Lake Tahoe neighborhood to receive a National Firewise USA designation, a title issued by the National Fire Protection Association, in 2020. Two years ago — after a local house caught fire and others threatened — neighbors gathered together to organize evacuation drills collaboration with state agencies, and sharing information on best practices.

Bill Roberts raises the American flag in front of his home in South Lake Tahoe. Photo: Terry Chia/IB

Fellow resident Steve Martinson, who helps run the Homeowners Association’s website that publishes emergency information and updates, said nearby calls from the neighborhood with fire prompted him and others to act. “It made us realize that there is more we can do without relying on local champions,” he said in a statement last year. “We wanted to know how we could help ourselves and take steps to make our community safer.”

With the Kaldor fire raging toward their city, and devouring other communities in its path, Martinson was preparing to put their practices into practice even before official evacuation orders were issued. He said the neighbors were talking about their bags, their evacuation lists and the plans in place long before the fire turned gigantic. Now, knowing that each of his neighbors had safely and quietly evacuated the area, he said it worked flawlessly.

“To find out that everybody got out and we didn’t have any traffic on our street with one exit point – it would have very easily become a massive choke point,” he said. “All the planning and everything we went through helped us succeed because then it was time to execute.”

Martinson recalled how the last time fire threatened the area, when a wind-driven bushfire swept through El Dorado County in 2007 and set fire to more than 200 homes in the area. He was not ready. The flames were already visible from the top of his subdivision before he started to prepare and by that time it was already too late. “We jumped in the car and said, ‘We’re out here,’ and we left everything behind. There’s no planning, no way to deal,” he said. It will be another decade before the threat reappears, this time a smaller flare-up in a neighbor’s house.

Fire engulfs homes as the Kaldor Fire rushes toward South Lake Tahoe. Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

Now, each spring before fire season begins, the neighborhood hosts an annual clean-up day to disinfect properties and homes of plants susceptible to flames, as well as educational programs for firefighters and testing of emergency warning systems.

They burn the leaves. They chop down trees that are too close to structures. They remove piles of firewood that are piled near homes or under roofs. “You don’t realize that all it takes is one ember to go down in those things and the whole neighborhood to go up,” Martinson said.

And of course they did the first evacuation drill that took place in the Tahoe Basin.

Homeowners invested hundreds of hours creating defensible spaces and nearly $13,000 in 2019 alone to earn the assignment, partnering with the Tahoe Communities Fire Adaptation Program, a local agency-run collaboration between neighborhoods, local fire districts, and public land management agencies. .

When they ranked last year, the neighborhood was one of only 1,500 in the country. Others have since followed.

There are now nearly 1,900 certified neighborhoods nationwide, according to Megan Fitzgerald McGowan, a program specialist with the National Fire Protection Association.

“It’s a program that targets the population,” Fitzgerald McGowan said. “It’s based on the idea that a home’s condition and immediate surroundings dictate its chance of surviving a wildfire.”

The program focuses on community by design. The chances of stopping or slowing down forest fires are much higher when neighbors work together to use fire protection strategies.

Jess Anderson and his ex-wife Corinne Coble pack their home to vacate South Lake Tahoe while their son, Ethan, 11, watches. Photo: Paul Kitagaki Jr./Zuma PressWire/Rex/Shutterstock

“Living in a wildfire zone is not easy. It is an ongoing commitment that you have to be aware of and that you have to plan for,” Fitzgerald McGowan said. “If you live there you acknowledge that you are doing your part.”

The Reynolds credits their camaraderie with the city’s resilience and willingness. She said the neighbors help the neighbors clean the yards. If a new person moves into town, Reynolds said, they will be given a suitcase and updated information on what to do when a disaster strikes.

“We have a database of everyone,” she said. “We have information on people who need special assistance.

“We have prepared our homes as best we can and that can come in handy for firefighters to help defend your home,” Reynolds said, noting that neighbors were sharing information from their home security cameras that capture current conditions outside their homes. The fire has already shown extreme behavior and the strategies used by these residents may still be insufficient to save them. But it gave them a chance to fight.

Even if they burn down, Martinson said the neighborhood is still in it together. “All we can do is hope for the best and deal with whatever happens as a society,” he said. “Maybe he didn’t touch my house, but my neighbor might be destroyed,” he added. “But whatever we do, we’ll do it together to make sure we can rebuild.”

[ad_2]