Smoke, Fire and Our Brief Vacation

By George Snider

On August 21, my wife and I departed Cleveland for a long-planned week’s vacation in South Lake Tahoe. Three days later, in the face of suffocating smoke and approaching fire, we were on our way home.

For over 30 years, Nora and I have traveled around the end of August to celebrate her birthday and our wedding anniversary, aka “birthaversary.” With Covid and the Delta variant playing havoc with overseas cruises and travel, we opted this year for a week in the West. Lake Tahoe would be new territory for us.

For some weeks prior to our departure, we had followed the mammoth Dixie Fire north of Sacramento, whose smoke blanketed much of the U.S. for several days. But southwesterly winds took that smoke away from Tahoe. Then, a week before vacation, a tiny blaze known as the Caldor Fire began. Located in the Eldorado National Forest west of South Lake Tahoe, it suddenly exploded days later. Nonetheless, the fire was still over 20 miles away from the lake, and fire lines were holding. Given all our planning and investment, we decided to make the trip.

South Lake Tahoe, at 6200 feet above sea level, straddles the California-Nevada border. Its main attractions to residents and tourists alike have been the crystal-clear glacial lake, the towering Ponderosa pines and Sierra Nevada mountain peaks surrounding the lake, and 10,000-foot-high Heavenly Mountain – a skier’s dream. We looked forward to seeing it all.

Reality quickly settled in, however. On exiting the rental car garage at Reno airport, we drove into thick smoke that blanketed the desert and would continue southward to our destination, 59 miles away. We had planned to be in South Lake Tahoe by dusk, but flight delays decided otherwise. We were soon driving in the dark and navigating a twisting, increasingly steep highway as a blood-orange moon rose through the smoke and haze.

Finally arriving at the ski lodge in Heavenly Village where we planned to spend the week, we found that the smell of smoke permeated everything, although our apartment’s air seemed slightly fresher. The next morning, a Sunday, bright sun soon turned to a yellowish haze and then to grey. We drove to a nearby beach, where Lake Tahoe literally disappeared a foot or two from shore – no pines or peaks in sight. We found a restaurant near the Heavenly Mountain ski run, where numerous diners chose to sit on the patio and enjoy smoke with their meal. As we left the restaurant, ash began to fall and we realized there was no way we would stay the week.

American was able to switch our flight to Wednesday, and we drove to Reno Tuesday night. Despite warnings from the airline that Western jet fuel shortages might cancel our flight, it left on time.

Talking to the few shopkeepers and restaurant workers still open on Monday, we saw how anxious they were about their personal safety and the future of their businesses. By this point, the Caldor fire had grown to over 140,000 acres – or nearly 250 square miles – and was just 12 miles away from the Tahoe basin. One granite ridge separated the fire from the lake. Almost as threatening, the Air Quality Index (which goes from 1-perfect to 500-extremely hazardous) had risen by some readings to an off-the-chart 600. The day we flew home, the local tourist bureau issued a statement urging visitors to stay home for the foreseeable future – dashing any remaining hopes for a profitable, tourist-filled Labor Day weekend.

That, however, was not the end of the story. By week’s end, the fire had jumped the granite ridge and was threatening the entire Lake Tahoe basin. Early the following week of August 28, the 22,000 residents of South Lake Tahoe were ordered to evacuate, clogging Route 50 east – essentially the only way out of town. On Wednesday evening, 2000 firefighters moved into Heavenly Village and set up a command post and staging area in its large parking lot. Thanks to their efforts, the mandatory evacuation orders were lifted over Labor Day weekend, allowing residents to return from their temporary shelters in Carson City and Reno.

From a broader viewpoint, the Reno-Tahoe region in recent years has benefited from an influx of people eager to escape the aggravations of big-city life and more recently the pandemic. Now, both new and old residents face fire seasons that increasingly will last from July through October or beyond, fueled by extreme drought and tinder-dry vegetation. With each new fire, the air they breathe will be hazardous to their health for days, weeks and perhaps months. As the air clears, the smell of smoke will linger in their homes and businesses. One can only imagine the choices they will need to make in coming years.

Friends and family with whom we have shared this story marvel at our willingness to travel at all, given the Delta variant and so-called breakthrough infections. Nora and I are fully vaccinated and look forward to the Pfizer and Moderna boosters in months to come. Our aborted vacation took us on four flights through four airports. All the passengers we saw wore masks (most covering noses as well as mouths), and there were no incidents. On a risk-benefit scale, we felt as safe – or certainly no less safe – than we would dining at any local restaurant or visiting any local theater or museum. By far, the worse danger was the Caldor Fire, to which we should have paid greater respect.

 

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