How Long Would It Take to Evacuate Lake Tahoe in an Emergency?

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(TNS) — People forced to flee the Lake Tahoe Basin during a wildfire emergency could face a life-threatening, hours-long, slog to safety, a new report reveals.

The Tahoe Basin Wildfire Evacuation Analysis released in late August shows no-notice evacuations in some areas could take eight to nine hours. Those times factor in a potential shutdown of Highway 28 at Stateline and Sand Harbor. Those times balloon to as many as 14 hours depending on road closures.

So-called no-notice incidents are those that are suddenly and immediately life-threatening and prompt evacuations, such as the Bear Fire, which roared to life Monday in a remote part of Sierra County near the town of Loyalton. Residents living in roughly 250 homes in Sierra Brooks were forced to evacuate hours after the fire kicked off amid a red flag warning. The fire had swelled to nearly 1,400 acres by Tuesday morning.

“The public and land use planners deserve to be aware of potential evacuation outcomes,” Doug Flaherty of TahoeCleanAir.org, and a former battalion chief, said in a statement announcing the report.

“The carrying capacity in the Tahoe Basin is already beyond strained,” Flaherty said adding that officials “need to take a reality-based approach to land use planning decisions to help avoid issues experienced in other major wildfires.”

The independent analysis commissioned by TahoeCleanAir.org, isn’t intended as advice, the nonprofit cautioned, but paints a clear scenario of the chaos and challenges residents, visitors and first responders would face if an emergency befell the basin.

In the analysts’ scenario, the emergency happened between 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. during Lake Tahoe’s peak summer season. Evacuees in the scenario would have been given little to no notice, used vehicles to flee, and got their start within an hour of being told to evacuate.

Analysts using artificial intelligence, studies of Sierra wildfire behavior and expertise from firefighters on the ground during 2018’s deadly and destructive Camp Fire, conducted hundreds of evacuation simulations, estimating evacuation times, mocking up road closures and other bottlenecks anticipated during a fast-moving blaze.

The study, part of a soon-to-be-released larger evacuation analysis, focuses on the Placer County area of the lake, Tahoe’s Nevada north shore and their four evacuation routes: Highway 89 north toward Truckee; Highway 89 south toward South Lake Tahoe; Highway 28 to Highway 267 over Brockway Pass, and Highway 28 into Incline Village to Mt. Rose Summit.

“The average estimated time required to evacuate to complete a no-notice evacuation of the Placer/Tahoe Study Area during peak summer months is between 9 and 10 hours or more,” the report read.

Tahoe residents are familiar with destructive wildfires. The Tamarack fire that scorched more than 67,000 acres in California and Nevada in 2021 was followed just months later by the Caldor fire that burned more than 221,000 acres.

Both blazes burned during the peak summer tourism season in the 207,000-acre Tahoe Basin, prompting the report’s calls to local leaders to hone its safety plans.

“This analysis underscores the need for Tahoe policy makers to provide better, more transparent public safety planning,” Flaherty said.