Hotels In The Area Are Fully Booked By Caldor Fire Evacuees

Hotels are filling up in Placerville as families look for shelter after being forced to evacuate due to the devastating Caldor Fire.

According to CBS13, most hotels in the area are fully booked. Many evacuees spent Tuesday, August 17, looking for a place to say since they were evacuated overnight.

“Everything is hitting us at once, there is nothing we can do,” one evacuee Melissa Gustafson told CBS13. “We could hear the roaring of it in the distance. It was almost like a jet plane landing."

The Gustafson's were one of the last to get a room at the Best Western in Placerville. Just hours later they found out their 11-year-old home had been burnt to the ground by the Caldor Fire.

“I don’t think there is any processing right now, everything is gone. You don’t know what to do, you don’t know where to go,” she said. “We lost the ashes to my husband’s parents, every picture I had with my kids when they were little, everything is gone."

Some evacuees that couldn't find a room have been staying in church parking lots while looking for hotels.

“It’s hard seeing guests come in and losing everything and not have a place to go," Holly Fukui, a manager at the Best Western Plus Placerville Inn. “Turning someone away in a disaster like this — it’s very difficult to do for anyone. We have had to turn away at least 100 people started last night."

According to CBS13, the hotel is looking for other ways to help evacuees like offering free dinner for families.