February 4, 2022 • 33 mins
On August 3, 2021 the City of South Lake Tahoe’s city council approved their new wildfire evacuation plan. Clive Savacool, Fire Chief with South Lake Tahoe Fire and Rescue, led the effort to draft the new plan, not knowing that it would be put into action for real a few weeks later when the Caldor Fire would threaten South Lake Tahoe.
For more full episode details including the transcript, visit https://www.buzzsprout.com/1819551/episodes/10001978
On Episode 9 of the Living With Fire Podcast, Chief Savacool talks about writing and executing the evacuation plan. "When I was putting it together with help from others, I honestly never envisioned putting it into play on my own, during my career," Savacool explains.
But, on August 30, 2021 at 10:59 am, the very active Caldor Fire was spreading toward South Lake Tahoe. As a result, agencies began evacuating people. About 22,000 people were issued evacuation orders and told to leave their homes.
Later that night, the Caldor Fire crossed Echo Summit and entered Christmas Valley, a secluded community about 10 miles away from South Lake Tahoe. Amanda Milici, the Tahoe Network of Fire Adapted Communities coordinator, lives in Christmas Valley. Milici described how she and her partner were evacuated twice, first, to her partners' parents' home in South Lake Tahoe, where they were required to evacuate again, less than 24 hours later.
"We kind of thought we would at least have a couple days there, you know? We had no idea how fast the fire was moving, and then the next morning, probably just like 12 hours later, we evacuated from the city." Milici explains.
The Caldor Fire evacuation was a massive operation. Chief Savacool described some of the challenges involved in such an effort and how agencies in Tahoe worked together to make it happen. “We all recognize that we can't handle a major incident our own and we recognize that the community is what matters. And so we have to make sure we're doing right by them versus our own interests,” said Savacool.
- For more information about preparing for wildfire in Lake Tahoe visit TahoeLivingWithFire.com
- Have you listened to the Living With Fire Podcast? Fill out the Living With Fire Podcast Survey at bit.ly/LivingWithFirePodcastSurvey
Funding for this podcast was provided by the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1994 in cooperation with the Tahoe RCD & University of Nevada, Reno Extension, an EEO/AA Institution.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Megan Kay (00:19):
Welcome to the Living with Fire Podcast where we share
stories and resources to helpyou live more safely with
wildfire. Hi, I'm your host,Megan Kay, Outreach Coordinator
for the Living with Fire Programon today's episode, I'm joined
by Jamie Royce-Gomes, manager ofthe Living with Fire Program,
and our partner, Amanda Milici,the Fire Adapted Communities
(00:42):
Program Coordinator at the TahoeResource Conservation District.
Together, we interviewed ChiefClive Savacool with South Lake
Tahoe Fire and Rescue. He talkedabout how agencies in Tahoe work
together to evacuate peopleduring the Caldor Fire, which
occurred near Lake Tahoe lastsummer. On August 30, 2021 at
(01:03):
10:59am, the evacuation orderwas issued for South Lake Tahoe,
and about 22,000 people wereordered to evacuate. Amanda
lives in Tahoe and shares herevacuation story, and Chief
Savacool gives us some behindthe scenes knowledge about how
agencies in Tahoe have beenpreparing for a potential
wildfire evacuation and what itwas like to actually do it.
(01:23):
Can you introduce yourself withyour title and then maybe give
us a little bit of background onhow you got to South Lake.
Clive Savacool (01:38):
Sure. I'm Clive Savacool, Fire Chief for the
City of South Lake Tahoe. I'vebeen the Chief here for the last
year and a half. Before that, Iwas on the other side of El
Dorado County as a Fire Chief.
And prior to that, was afirefighter in the San Francisco
Bay Area for Contra CostaCounty, where I spent most of my
career.
Megan Kay (01:56):
Awesome. Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming on the
podcast. I kind of just wantedto start by to start by asking
you how the Caldor Fire was foryou. What was your experience?
Clive Savacool (02:08):
Yeah, it was very enlightening. And
fortunately, I have an amazingcity council, amazing city
manager and great counterpart ofthe police department. And my
firefighters are super hardworkers, so if anybody had to do
anybody had to do these roles ontheir own without support, I
can't imagine. And sofortunately, prior to the Caldor
(02:30):
Fire, we'd had several EmergencyOperations Center drills. So
that's basically, we take everydepartment head in the city, and
they fill out differentpositions that they would had we
activated the EmergencyOperations Center, and then
prior to the Caldor Fire, we hadthe Tamarack Fire, and we didn't
think it would get to Tahoe, andit didn't, but we still prepped,
(02:52):
and we got everybody ready, andwe went through a dry run.
Should we have to activate ourEOC Emergency Operation Center
we would be in good shape. Andso we had a nice, nice dress
rehearsal. And in addition tothat, I was tasked with coming
up with a new evacuation planfor the city. And prior to the
(03:13):
Caldor Fire, and ironically, theCity Council adopted that new
evacuation plan on August 3rd,less than a month before we
actually put into play. Andhonestly, when I was putting it
together, was putting ittogether with help from others,
I honestly never envisionedactually putting it into play on
my own during my career. And soit was shocking that,
fortunately, we put some hardwork into it. So it actually
(03:35):
worked well, but the wholeincident itself was such a huge
challenge.
Megan Kay (03:42):
So then, so the timeline kind of went you got
hired, and you got tasked withrevamping or updating the
evacuation plan. And then theTamarack Fire happens. Where
were you in the process whenthat fire was happening was? Did
that kind of light a fire underyou and the city council to be
like, Okay, we need to get thisgoing right now? Or were you,
(04:05):
did it, did the Tamarack Firehave any sort of impact on the
timeline of getting thatevacuation plan ready?
Clive Savacool (04:13):
We started the evacuation plan rebuild probably
last winter, so it was alreadywell underway. The city manager
has in the city council has alist of strategic priorities.
They put together things likehousing and that sort of thing
to help out the community. Andrevamping our evacuation plan
was part of that. And so thecity manager tasked me with
(04:34):
that, along with the PoliceChief and the Police Department.
So it was already well in theworks, the Tamarack fire, even
though we we didn't reallybelieve it would get to Tahoe,
we did have trigger points. Youknow, if it crossed highway 89
we're gonna kind of do a softopening of our EOC, and if it
got into the county line, that'swe're gonna do full blown EOC
(04:57):
activation. So we had ourtrigger points. You always plan
for the worst, hope for thebest. But I think what the
Tamarack Fire helped was it gotthe community prepared too,
because we saw this huge plumeof smoke just over the hill. Our
fire stations were blowing upwith phone calls, people walking
up saying, do I we need toevacuate? And so we started our
(05:19):
messaging early on, saying,please everyone register for
Code Red, the county's alertingsystem should there be an
evacuation. So the Tamarackreally was a great primer for
the Caldor Fire, not just forthe city staff and the fire
department staff, but also thecommunity itself.
Megan Kay (05:33):
And you guys had, I mean, it must have been. I mean,
it seems like there might besort've a little bit surreal to
be rehearsing for something,putting a lot of effort into
something, and then all of asudden it happens.
Clive Savacool (05:46):
So the preparing for incidents is a lot of what
we do. I'm going to paraphrasepoorly, but there's a quote from
Lincoln saying, If you give mesix hours to chop down a tree,
I'll spend the first foursharpening the axe. So we spend
a lot of time building out theseplans with the hopes that we
never have to use them. Butshould we need them? They're
(06:06):
they're well thought out. And sowe actually started, we
activated the EmergencyOperations Center, I believe, it
was August 21st a week before,over a week before the
evacuation. And it all startedwith a conversation with the
city manager myself the nightbefore, just saying, Hey, let's
go down into the EOC. We don'tthink the Caldor Fire will ever
get to Tahoe, but let's just godown to the EOC, which is our
(06:29):
city council chambers, and geteverything ready, just in case.
And that phone call by the endof it, was deciding, nope, let's
get every department head downthere at 6am on a Saturday, and
let's, let's do this for real.
And kind of the sentiment fromsome people were that we were
activating the EOC too soon,because it, it does send a
message to the community whenyou activate it. And when
(06:53):
everyone's saying, well, CaldorFire will never get to Tahoe,
then they question, well, thenwhy is the city activating the
Emergency Operations Center, andso we recognized that by doing
that, it was going to have somemessaging in itself. But we
thought if we actually do havethe Calder fire come in our
community, we need the fullweek, or whatever it is to
prepare. So by the time weactually got to that Monday
(07:14):
where we called for theevacuation, we had done so much
preparing that we were as readyas we could have been.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (07:23):
Chief Savacool. I actually have a
question just to help theaudience remember now, when did
the Tamarack fire happen inrelation to the time period of
the Caldor Fire?
Clive Savacool (07:36):
It was just about a month before, and I'm
trying to remember the exactdate, but it was not that much
more before it actually, Ibelieve it started on July 4th.
I'm pretty sure it started righton July 4th. It burned for a few
days, and then it really flaredup. I can't remember the exact
(07:57):
date, but there was this onedate where there's just this
huge plume of smoke you couldsee from South Lake Tahoe, and
that's when everyone kind ofwent into panic mode. And I
think it went on for a couplefew weeks. So it was pretty,
pretty recent before the Caldorfire.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (08:13):
So the the Tamarick Fire occurred in like
July to mid, mid, late July, andthen the Caldor Fire occurred
late August into September.
Clive Savacool (08:23):
Yeah, I think the Caldor Fire started on
August 14th.
Megan Kay (08:31):
During an emergency like a wildfire evacuation,
officials use local emergencynotification systems to send
messages and keep people in thatregion informed, depending on
which type of emergencynotification system your county
uses, you can register multiplephone numbers, email addresses,
and register to receive voice ortext messages. Doing so
(08:53):
increases the likelihood thatyou'll receive these urgent
notifications. Visittahoelivingwithfire.com to
register for emergencynotifications in the Lake Tahoe
Basin.
Amanda, do you mind if I ask youa question real quick?
Amanda Milici (09:12):
Yeah, please do.
Megan Kay (09:14):
So Amanda was evacuated because she you live
in Christmas Valley, right?
Where in relation, so what isyour Fire District?
Amanda Milici (09:24):
It's Lake Valley Fire Protection District. Yeah.
Megan Kay (09:27):
And then so where Chief Savacool like? So where's
just to kind of, because this isan audio format, you can't do it
visually. Can you describe kindof like in relation, where your
district and the Lake Valleydistrict are in relation to the
Caldor Fire and to the lake.
Clive Savacool (09:47):
Yeah. So Christmas Valley is right on the
edge of essentially the TahoeBasin, right at the base of Echo
Summit, and the city Properstarts at about the airport and
when, and then the city itselfgoes all the way to the South
side of Lake Tahoe. Now, when webuilt out our evacuation plan,
(10:10):
we did it collaboratively withLake Valley Fire, with Cal Fire,
with the US Forest Service, withthe Sheriff's Department, with
CHP. We built it with everybodyin mind, because we knew that if
we got to the point where weneeded to evacuate, we were
going to have to do itcollaboratively with everyone.
And so if you look at ourevacuation map itself, it
(10:32):
basically just breaks down everycommunity in South Lake Tahoe,
including the unincorporatedcounty areas, into
neighborhoods. And we did thatbecause city lines, boundary
lines, don't matter when itcomes to evacuation, we were
going to make the decisioncollaboratively with everyone in
mind, because it it didn'treally matter what the city
(10:53):
boundaries were not. And if wetried to do something on our
own, it just would have beendisjointed, mixed messaging and
problematic. And so even thoughwe're separate agencies, we
coordinated our evacuationtogether with all the agencies I
mentioned.
Megan Kay (11:08):
So when you said you described the EOC, the can you
explain that acronym again realquick?
Clive Savacool (11:15):
Yes, that's the Emergency Operations Center, and
it basically outlines similar tohow the incident command team
down in Placerville on the otherside of the county was running
the incident. We technically weweren't running the fire. All we
were doing is managing our cityand the community and getting
them prepared for an evacuation.
So with the Emergency OperationsCenter, it basically takes
(11:35):
department heads and they theyfill out the different positions
for an Emergency OperationCenter, which is finance
section, logistics section,operations, planning and Public
Information Officers andliaisons. And so we take, for
example, the city attorney. Sheis the city's liaison when the
Emergency Operations Center isactivated, the Parks and Rec
(11:56):
Department Director. She runslogistics section, the Police
Chief, he runs operationsection. And so these different
entities throughout the city,they have dual roles. So that's
why we had to have our drillsthroughout the year leading up
to this. Because you're askingsomeone that's been, you know,
running Parks and Rec for foryears in the city, to take on
(12:17):
this position in a very naturaldisaster. And so that's that's
basically how the EOC is is setup.
Megan Kay (12:26):
So circling back to you, Amanda, the reason I wanted
to loop you in is because youexperienced the evacuation. So
just like Chief was sayingearlier, about once the EOC is
formed, that kind of sends amessage to the community. I know
that it's a different fireprotection district you're in,
Lake Valley, but what was itlike for you?
Amanda Milici (12:46):
Yeah, so I actually evacuated twice,
because I evacuated fromChristmas Valley on Sunday, and
that was Sunday, I want to saythe 29th, August 29th and I
evacuated from Christmas Valleyto my partner's parents house in
the city, and they live by thecollege. And we kind of thought
(13:11):
we would at least have a coupledays there, you know, we had no
idea how fast the fire wasmoving. And then the next
morning, probably just like 12hours later, we evacuated from
the city. So it was, yeah, twoevacuations within 24 hours.
Yeah. I mean, it was definitelyreally surreal when the Caldor
(13:32):
Fire first started, I justdidn't even have any worry that
it would, you know, come intothe Tahoe Basin. And as it
inched closer and closer, it waskind of like, Huh, that's not
ideal, but still, I mean, couldit really crash Echo Summit? And
then once the evacuationwarnings were issued for
(13:52):
Christmas Valley, then it wasreally like, Okay, this is this
is real. And then once thewarnings turned into orders, and
then once the whole city wasevacuated. It was like, All
right, this is really happening.
It was, it all just happened soquickly that went from, you
know, oh, there's no way thiscould happen, to oh, we're,
we're in the middle of it now.
Megan Kay (14:17):
Wildfire evacuations are stressful, and often there's
not much notice before it's timeto leave. In order to leave
quickly and safely, when asked,prepare for evacuation now and
pack a go bag before anemergency happens. A go bag
should be easily accessible andpacked with at least three days
of supplies for each member ofyour family, including pets.
(14:41):
Visit tahoelivingwithfire.com tolearn more.
Clive Savacool (14:44):
I can't emphasize enough the preparing
side of the evacuation, and Ikind of would tell everyone that
the key to the solid evacuationgoing smooth was having strong
relationships, planning purposesor planning process and acting,
(15:08):
I'm sorry, acting early,relationships and planning. And
so we spent that full weekbefore the evacuation working
with our partners. It's, we hadto find busses. We had to
identify the demographics whowouldn't have cars, we had to
find evacuation shelters thatwould take pets. We had to
(15:30):
identify what to do with thehospital, because that was going
to be a different evacuationwith different triggers. We
identified neighborhoods becauseit wasn't just which
neighborhoods closest to thefire. If we found a neighborhood
that might have a demographicdoesn't have cars they might
evacuate before a neighborhoodthat's actually closer to the
actual incident. So a lot ofplanning went into that. And on
(15:50):
the morning of the 30th thatMonday, I worked the EOC that
night before, so I was up allnight, and I would drive up Echo
Summit every couple hours take alook at the progress and with
the predicted fire behavior andthe weather. When the rest of
the EOC staff came in thatmorning, got together the Police
(16:11):
Chief and the City Manager, ourliaisons from the incident, and
basically said, You know whatthis fire could get through the
city today with the way it'sit's going, and if we just are
passive about this, and we waitfor the incident command post in
Placerville to make the call foran evacuation, it might not be
until the afternoon, and wemight end up evacuating people
(16:33):
into the night, which would be achallenge, especially since we
were only going to do one routeout of town, which was highway
50 through Stateline. So wedidn't want to use 89 North due
to the the narrow road that itis. And if one car broke down,
or car accident happened, tojust stop everything, and we
have to start directingresources that way. So what we
(16:56):
decided is we got together withthe EOC from the Sheriff's
Department, came up with ourplan, and then send it over to
the incident management team,who was running the incident
itself. And they because wewanted their endorsement, even
though technically are thegoverning the law enforcement
agency with jurisdiction istechnically the one that makes
the decision to evacuate, westill wanted to have the
(17:18):
blessing of everybody else thatwas involved in the incident,
and so I think we met at 8amwith the Sheriff's Department,
and the incident bought off onit, and it was at 9:18, that
morning that we started sendingout the first red alerts to
evacuate. So it actually wentvery smooth as far as the
(17:38):
triggers, and it was set up instages to evacuate the
community. There, there werebumps in the road, as there
always are. So somenotifications went out earlier
than we'd hoped with some of theneighborhoods. But ultimately,
the evacuation, despite the fourand a half hours of traffic, it
went as smooth as it could,given that we're trying to
(17:58):
evacuate that many people outone direction of the city.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (18:01):
Chief, can you just to help us stay on
track with the timeline. Whatday did you guys evacuate,
folks?
Clive Savacool (18:11):
I believe is Monday, the 30th. At least that
was the bulk of it. We did doChristmas Valley that Sunday,
the day before.
Megan Kay (18:20):
And then how do you how did you notify the
neighborhoods of evacuation? Wasit a door to door thing, or did
you guys use text alerts?
Clive Savacool (18:33):
We use red alert, and we use door to door.
And so before, I can't rememberwhich day it was, maybe that
Friday before the evacuation. Soseveral days beforehand, we had
a huge influx of law enforcementcome into South Lake Tahoe. The
concern was that if the fireblew up, they wouldn't be able
to get up Highway 50, and so allthose law enforcement officers
(18:55):
would have to go around to getinto South Lake so we had them
all staged in South Lake Tahoeat our City Hall several days
before the evacuation. And sothe days leading up to the
evacuation, they would driveneighborhoods, and they would
get head counts, they would putnotes on doors, and then when
the actual evacuation tookplace, all those law enforcement
(19:15):
officers were out in thestreets, knocking on doors on
loudspeakers, basically usheringpeople out of town.
Megan Kay (19:21):
I don't want to interrupt the timeline. I was
just curious about how thelogistics of notifying those
people work.
Clive Savacool (19:28):
Yeah, that's how the initial code red alerts went
out. We, we did have some alsoplanning with the Visitors
Authority leading up to thatevacuation several days
beforehand. We, tried to getthem to get messaging out, and
they were very cooperative withgetting messages out to tourists
saying, don't come to Tahoe.
Every news interview I would dothe few days before the actual
evacuation, I would tell people,you know, their Bay Area news
(19:50):
stations and Sacramento newsstations, I'd tell them, now
isn't the time to come to Tahoe.
Even if you were able to get ahotel, it's going to be smokey.
Businesses are closed and theair quality is horrible, so
don't come to Tahoe. We also didplanning for the evacuation,
where we put flyers out in thecommunity at hotels vacation
(20:11):
rentals that had a QR code onthem. So if anybody checked into
a hotel, or if they were intown, we asked hotel desks and
such to how people scan them andthen they could register for
Code Red as they came into town.
So we did a major campaign ofjust getting everybody signed up
prior to.
Megan Kay (20:28):
If people had vacations planned to South Lake.
What a time, you know? I mean,besides just the danger of the
fire, the smoke was reallyintense.
Clive Savacool (20:37):
Yeah, I can't remember which news outlet it
was but it reported that SouthLake Tahoe had the worst air
quality on earth for a day ortwo there.
Megan Kay (20:46):
That's not the record. You want to have.
Clive Savacool (20:48):
No.
Megan Kay (20:54):
Communities located in wildfire prone areas. Need to
take extra measures to livesafely. There are many ways to
prepare communities andproperties for wildfire,
including creating andmaintaining adequate defensible
space and hardening homes towithstand wildfire. This could
mean altering or replacingcertain components of the home.
Our wildfire home retrofit guidewill help you better prepare
your home and communities forwildfire. You can find the guide
(21:17):
in the resources section of ourwebsite at livingwithfire.com
So what were some of the justout of curiosities, you
described some of the some ofthe challenges. What are some of
the, maybe like highlights andkudos, things that really went
really well.
Clive Savacool (21:39):
I think the collaboration between agencies.
We had so much going on in andoutside of our own jurisdictions
that it it's you're heavilydependent on other agencies to
work with you, and we don'talways have the same priorities.
You know, our concern, we madeclear, is to get our community
(21:59):
safe, get them out of town,protect their homes while
they're gone, the incidentmanagement team who's running to
the command post, they want toget the fire under control. You
know, they might not want torepopulate as fast as us,
because they're trying to managethe incident. If they have
people flying back into town,it's gonna be harder for them to
have resources. So I think thatus all embracing a level of
(22:20):
humility and recognizing thateven though it's a stressful
situation, we're all running onfumes, getting very little
sleep. My firefighters andmyself were all evacuated from
our own homes. I think eventhough the stress level is
really high, I just can'temphasize enough how well other
stakeholders and everybodyworked great together. You know,
(22:41):
the Lake Valley Fire Chief, himand I were in constant contact
when we saw the fire was headingtowards Christmas Valley. Our
message to them was, just tellus what you need. We'll send you
every resource we got. And so itreally brought, I think, not
just the community, but all thestakeholders together. And I
think that was a real highpoint.
Megan Kay (23:00):
Could you give us a maybe a few bullet points of
some of the key lessons thatwere learned during the
evacuation, and then also howyou're going to incorporate
those lessons going forward?
Clive Savacool (23:11):
Overall, we, I don't think we made any glaring
mistakes, or there's littlethings that we learned, such as
having a fleet of tow trucksready to go during the
evacuation, to get cars out ofthe way or out of the evacuation
zones, should they break down. Ithink that recognizing that
evacuation plans are a working,living document, so we can never
(23:35):
just file it and say we're good.
We've we've checked that box.
I've been tasked with becomingthe kind of coming up with an
evacuation plan for all of LakeTahoe with the Lake Tahoe Basin
Fire Chiefs Association and sothe group I'm working with on
that, we're going to take thelessons learned from this
basically create sections foreach county in the basin, so
(23:57):
that they have at theirfingertips, locations you can
get busses, the differentutility companies. Having a plan
in place so that if you do callfor an evacuation, you don't
have to look anything up.
There's already a playbook readyto go, and those playbooks are
going to need constant updating.
So I think those are some of thekey lessons. We were just very
(24:18):
fortunate because we built ourevacuation plan literally a
month before finished it, amonth before this, this took
place. So the, like, theplanning piece of it is just
huge.
Megan Kay (24:29):
So there's, like, many tiers right of this
evacuation, like, there's theindividual that has to be
prepared for evacuation, andthen maybe they own property
that then that has to beprepared for their property, for
fire and evacuation. And thenthere's the agencies that are
working, and it's, if I feellike there has to be some sort
of upward flow, things have toflow nicely. Otherwise there's,
(24:53):
there's just more hiccups thatcould potentially happen. It
seems like.
Clive Savacool (24:58):
Yeah, and having the the constant communication,
whether it be through the firechiefs association, through our
Fire Marshals, I think that onedynamic that South Lake Tahoe is
taking a step forward on iswe're creating a formal Fire
Prevention Bureau so that thefire department, in the past has
(25:18):
used on duty crews to send outfor inspections and defensible
space work. And moving forward,we're going to have a Fire
Marshal, dedicated FireInspector and part-time Fire and
Defensible Space Inspectors. Sowe're really revamping how we
address fire prevention in SouthLake Tahoe. And in conjunction
with that, we're going to workwith other stakeholders and
(25:41):
organizations such as yoursthrough these programs to make
sure our community is wellinformed and they're prepared.
Megan Kay (25:48):
For folks who may not understand this, the sort of
relationship between likeindividual homeowners and
agencies. So if they, if theywant to make their homes more, I
guess, fire safe or they want toprepare for for wildfire. They
need, sometimes they need someexpert guidance, right? And so
those are the agencyprofessionals that come out and
(26:09):
kind of assess their homes. Butit's a little hard for
firefighters to do that duringthe summer when they're on call.
Clive Savacool (26:17):
Yeah. So we're, we're really putting a focus on
the fire prevention side, notthat we haven't had that focus,
but we're just making adedicated division. And really
the firefighters, we have thebusiest fire agency in the
basin, they're running callspretty frequently. And so having
them tasked with these otherprojects, it's loading their
plate up with a lot. And so wereally, really need a dedicated
(26:41):
fire prevention bureau. TheCaldor Fire just kind of help
shine a light on it. The cityalready had it in the in the
strategic plan, not the actualFire Prevention Bureau Division,
but just fire prevention ingeneral. And so these inspectors
are Defensible Space Inspectorsthat go out. This was the first
year we used them, and they hada very warm reception. So as you
(27:03):
mentioned, getting the communityinformed with two inspectors, we
determined we could do theentire city, which is just over
15,000 parcels, in about 18months. And so when they would
go out and they would meet withpeople and educate them, it was
actually a very warm reception,as we were a bit concerned that
it would be perceived as theyard police.
Megan Kay (27:31):
So I thought that was an excellent run through of the
evacuation. I don't have anyother evacuation related
questions. Amanda, do you?
Amanda Milici (27:42):
So from a resident perspective, I felt
like we got pretty lucky in thatwe had a lot of time to prepare
for this evacuation. You know,like I said that the fire was
really creeping and creepingtowards the Basin, and so you
know us as residents, you know,we were just trying to get every
extra pine needle off the deck,and, like, really packing the
(28:04):
car, and feel like I had a lotof time to prepare, and I would
assume, from an agencyperspective, maybe that's the
same. And so how does, howdifferent does the evacuation
plan and like the execution ofthe evacuation plan, look when,
when or if a fire starts in theBasin. And there's not, you
(28:26):
know, those that week of time toreally prepare?
Clive Savacool (28:30):
Yeah, it's a great question. And I think that
the previous fires they've hadin the basin are probably some
examples of just a really fastmoving fire that you don't have
the luxury of a week leading upto it to educate people. And so
that's why front loading theeducation side is so important,
(28:50):
starting in the spring, makingsure people are signed up for
Code Red, working out the bugslike we didn't realize it until
we had some mistakes that peopleneeded to sign up for Code Red
online and not through the app.
If they signed on on through theapp, it didn't work, and we
didn't realize that until we didthe evacuations on Echo Summit.
(29:11):
So working those details out sothat if you do have a major fire
that is moving quickly, and wedon't have a week to get through
it, that you're able to send outthose notifications on a
moment's notice, and it's notgoing to be the first time that
that our citizens have heard beprepared to evacuate that
season. So like the Angora Fire,that one moved very fast, so we
(29:37):
need to make sure the public iseducated well in advance.
Amanda Milici (29:38):
Yeah, that's a really good point. And I think
one thing that I have personallyfound challenging is, like, the
balance between, you know, doingall of that front loading and
education and outreach, but alsohaving folks be really
interested and engaged in it.
(30:00):
I'm hopeful that the CaldorFire, that the momentum will,
you know, continue for years tocome. But I've definitely found
it challenging in the past,like, you know, April, March,
May, folks just aren't thinkingabout fire as much as they
should be for planning. Whereas,like July, August, there's smoke
in the air. It's hot, people arereally thinking about it, but at
(30:22):
that point, you know, the firecould start at any moment. So I
don't want to say it's too lateto prepare. It's never too late
to prepare, but feel like atthat point it's there's less
time. And so it's interesting tosort of, yeah, navigate finding
that balance between having alot of time to prepare and get
folks ready, but also gettingfolks really thinking about
fire.
Clive Savacool (30:43):
It's a great question and great point,
because people do have shortmemories. And I think if we'd
only had the Tamarack Fire andthere was that concern of
evacuation, it didn't quite hithome, like when people literally
have to leave their home, and,you know, and unfortunately,
evacuating and going throughthese types of incidents is
(31:04):
psychologically traumatic. Andso people that have lived here
and lived through the AngoraFire this, this was ripping off
a bandaid that opening up an oldscar. And so I think, because
this really hit home, literally,I think people are going to
remember it come thisspringtime. They are going to be
conscious about signing up forCode Red, and they're going to
(31:25):
listen when our inspectors comethrough town, because it's no
longer this hey, let's clean upyour lot for something that may
never happen. It's like, hey,clean up your lots, in case we
have a summer like last summer.
So we're optimistic that peopleare going to have a memory of
the Caldor Fire, and they'lltake it to heart.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (31:45):
I've noticed that people will they have,
like, what do they say the halflife of an emergency is like six
months, but honestly, I feellike it's shorter than that now
these days, and I hope that wecan continue that momentum.
Megan Kay (31:59):
What is, is there anything unique about working in
Lake Tahoe in regards topreparing for an event like
this?
Clive Savacool (32:08):
Yeah, I say that something that Tahoe has going
forward is, despite havingmultiple counties and couldn't
tell you how many different fireagencies, different state lines,
we all recognize that we can'thandle any major incident on our
own, and so nobody is tooterritorial or has their ego get
(32:30):
in the way to where they say,well, we don't need any help.
We're going to handle our ownbusiness. We all recognize that
we can't handle a major incidentour own, and we recognize that
the community is what matters.
And so we then make sure we'redoing right by them versus our
own interests. I came from anagency with 300 firefighters and
30 fire stations, and so wecould handle an emergency on our
(32:52):
own. That's not the case here.
And so fortunately, everybody inTahoe gets that. And so we all
play nice in the sandbox to makesure we provide the best service
we can.
Megan Kay (33:04):
Thank you for listening to the Living with
Fire Podcast. Funding for thispodcast was provided by the
Southern Nevada Public LandManagement Act of 1994 in
cooperation with Tahoe RCD andUniversity of Nevada Reno
Extension an EEO AAAinstitution.
Welcome to the Living with Fire Podcast where we share
stories and resources to helpyou live more safely with
wildfire. Hi, I'm your host,Megan Kay, Outreach Coordinator
for the Living with Fire Programon today's episode, I'm joined
by Jamie Royce-Gomes, manager ofthe Living with Fire Program,
and our partner, Amanda Milici,the Fire Adapted Communities
(00:42):
Program Coordinator at the TahoeResource Conservation District.
Together, we interviewed ChiefClive Savacool with South Lake
Tahoe Fire and Rescue. He talkedabout how agencies in Tahoe work
together to evacuate peopleduring the Caldor Fire, which
occurred near Lake Tahoe lastsummer. On August 30, 2021 at
(01:03):
10:59am, the evacuation orderwas issued for South Lake Tahoe,
and about 22,000 people wereordered to evacuate. Amanda
lives in Tahoe and shares herevacuation story, and Chief
Savacool gives us some behindthe scenes knowledge about how
agencies in Tahoe have beenpreparing for a potential
wildfire evacuation and what itwas like to actually do it.
(01:23):
Can you introduce yourself withyour title and then maybe give
us a little bit of background onhow you got to South Lake.
Clive Savacool (01:38):
Sure. I'm Clive Savacool, Fire Chief for the
City of South Lake Tahoe. I'vebeen the Chief here for the last
year and a half. Before that, Iwas on the other side of El
Dorado County as a Fire Chief.
And prior to that, was afirefighter in the San Francisco
Bay Area for Contra CostaCounty, where I spent most of my
career.
Megan Kay (01:56):
Awesome. Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming on the
podcast. I kind of just wantedto start by to start by asking
you how the Caldor Fire was foryou. What was your experience?
Clive Savacool (02:08):
Yeah, it was very enlightening. And
fortunately, I have an amazingcity council, amazing city
manager and great counterpart ofthe police department. And my
firefighters are super hardworkers, so if anybody had to do
anybody had to do these roles ontheir own without support, I
can't imagine. And sofortunately, prior to the Caldor
(02:30):
Fire, we'd had several EmergencyOperations Center drills. So
that's basically, we take everydepartment head in the city, and
they fill out differentpositions that they would had we
activated the EmergencyOperations Center, and then
prior to the Caldor Fire, we hadthe Tamarack Fire, and we didn't
think it would get to Tahoe, andit didn't, but we still prepped,
(02:52):
and we got everybody ready, andwe went through a dry run.
Should we have to activate ourEOC Emergency Operation Center
we would be in good shape. Andso we had a nice, nice dress
rehearsal. And in addition tothat, I was tasked with coming
up with a new evacuation planfor the city. And prior to the
(03:13):
Caldor Fire, and ironically, theCity Council adopted that new
evacuation plan on August 3rd,less than a month before we
actually put into play. Andhonestly, when I was putting it
together, was putting ittogether with help from others,
I honestly never envisionedactually putting it into play on
my own during my career. And soit was shocking that,
fortunately, we put some hardwork into it. So it actually
(03:35):
worked well, but the wholeincident itself was such a huge
challenge.
Megan Kay (03:42):
So then, so the timeline kind of went you got
hired, and you got tasked withrevamping or updating the
evacuation plan. And then theTamarack Fire happens. Where
were you in the process whenthat fire was happening was? Did
that kind of light a fire underyou and the city council to be
like, Okay, we need to get thisgoing right now? Or were you,
(04:05):
did it, did the Tamarack Firehave any sort of impact on the
timeline of getting thatevacuation plan ready?
Clive Savacool (04:13):
We started the evacuation plan rebuild probably
last winter, so it was alreadywell underway. The city manager
has in the city council has alist of strategic priorities.
They put together things likehousing and that sort of thing
to help out the community. Andrevamping our evacuation plan
was part of that. And so thecity manager tasked me with
(04:34):
that, along with the PoliceChief and the Police Department.
So it was already well in theworks, the Tamarack fire, even
though we we didn't reallybelieve it would get to Tahoe,
we did have trigger points. Youknow, if it crossed highway 89
we're gonna kind of do a softopening of our EOC, and if it
got into the county line, that'swe're gonna do full blown EOC
(04:57):
activation. So we had ourtrigger points. You always plan
for the worst, hope for thebest. But I think what the
Tamarack Fire helped was it gotthe community prepared too,
because we saw this huge plumeof smoke just over the hill. Our
fire stations were blowing upwith phone calls, people walking
up saying, do I we need toevacuate? And so we started our
(05:19):
messaging early on, saying,please everyone register for
Code Red, the county's alertingsystem should there be an
evacuation. So the Tamarackreally was a great primer for
the Caldor Fire, not just forthe city staff and the fire
department staff, but also thecommunity itself.
Megan Kay (05:33):
And you guys had, I mean, it must have been. I mean,
it seems like there might besort've a little bit surreal to
be rehearsing for something,putting a lot of effort into
something, and then all of asudden it happens.
Clive Savacool (05:46):
So the preparing for incidents is a lot of what
we do. I'm going to paraphrasepoorly, but there's a quote from
Lincoln saying, If you give mesix hours to chop down a tree,
I'll spend the first foursharpening the axe. So we spend
a lot of time building out theseplans with the hopes that we
never have to use them. Butshould we need them? They're
(06:06):
they're well thought out. And sowe actually started, we
activated the EmergencyOperations Center, I believe, it
was August 21st a week before,over a week before the
evacuation. And it all startedwith a conversation with the
city manager myself the nightbefore, just saying, Hey, let's
go down into the EOC. We don'tthink the Caldor Fire will ever
get to Tahoe, but let's just godown to the EOC, which is our
(06:29):
city council chambers, and geteverything ready, just in case.
And that phone call by the endof it, was deciding, nope, let's
get every department head downthere at 6am on a Saturday, and
let's, let's do this for real.
And kind of the sentiment fromsome people were that we were
activating the EOC too soon,because it, it does send a
message to the community whenyou activate it. And when
(06:53):
everyone's saying, well, CaldorFire will never get to Tahoe,
then they question, well, thenwhy is the city activating the
Emergency Operations Center, andso we recognized that by doing
that, it was going to have somemessaging in itself. But we
thought if we actually do havethe Calder fire come in our
community, we need the fullweek, or whatever it is to
prepare. So by the time weactually got to that Monday
(07:14):
where we called for theevacuation, we had done so much
preparing that we were as readyas we could have been.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (07:23):
Chief Savacool. I actually have a
question just to help theaudience remember now, when did
the Tamarack fire happen inrelation to the time period of
the Caldor Fire?
Clive Savacool (07:36):
It was just about a month before, and I'm
trying to remember the exactdate, but it was not that much
more before it actually, Ibelieve it started on July 4th.
I'm pretty sure it started righton July 4th. It burned for a few
days, and then it really flaredup. I can't remember the exact
(07:57):
date, but there was this onedate where there's just this
huge plume of smoke you couldsee from South Lake Tahoe, and
that's when everyone kind ofwent into panic mode. And I
think it went on for a couplefew weeks. So it was pretty,
pretty recent before the Caldorfire.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (08:13):
So the the Tamarick Fire occurred in like
July to mid, mid, late July, andthen the Caldor Fire occurred
late August into September.
Clive Savacool (08:23):
Yeah, I think the Caldor Fire started on
August 14th.
Megan Kay (08:31):
During an emergency like a wildfire evacuation,
officials use local emergencynotification systems to send
messages and keep people in thatregion informed, depending on
which type of emergencynotification system your county
uses, you can register multiplephone numbers, email addresses,
and register to receive voice ortext messages. Doing so
(08:53):
increases the likelihood thatyou'll receive these urgent
notifications. Visittahoelivingwithfire.com to
register for emergencynotifications in the Lake Tahoe
Basin.
Amanda, do you mind if I ask youa question real quick?
Amanda Milici (09:12):
Yeah, please do.
Megan Kay (09:14):
So Amanda was evacuated because she you live
in Christmas Valley, right?
Where in relation, so what isyour Fire District?
Amanda Milici (09:24):
It's Lake Valley Fire Protection District. Yeah.
Megan Kay (09:27):
And then so where Chief Savacool like? So where's
just to kind of, because this isan audio format, you can't do it
visually. Can you describe kindof like in relation, where your
district and the Lake Valleydistrict are in relation to the
Caldor Fire and to the lake.
Clive Savacool (09:47):
Yeah. So Christmas Valley is right on the
edge of essentially the TahoeBasin, right at the base of Echo
Summit, and the city Properstarts at about the airport and
when, and then the city itselfgoes all the way to the South
side of Lake Tahoe. Now, when webuilt out our evacuation plan,
(10:10):
we did it collaboratively withLake Valley Fire, with Cal Fire,
with the US Forest Service, withthe Sheriff's Department, with
CHP. We built it with everybodyin mind, because we knew that if
we got to the point where weneeded to evacuate, we were
going to have to do itcollaboratively with everyone.
And so if you look at ourevacuation map itself, it
(10:32):
basically just breaks down everycommunity in South Lake Tahoe,
including the unincorporatedcounty areas, into
neighborhoods. And we did thatbecause city lines, boundary
lines, don't matter when itcomes to evacuation, we were
going to make the decisioncollaboratively with everyone in
mind, because it it didn'treally matter what the city
(10:53):
boundaries were not. And if wetried to do something on our
own, it just would have beendisjointed, mixed messaging and
problematic. And so even thoughwe're separate agencies, we
coordinated our evacuationtogether with all the agencies I
mentioned.
Megan Kay (11:08):
So when you said you described the EOC, the can you
explain that acronym again realquick?
Clive Savacool (11:15):
Yes, that's the Emergency Operations Center, and
it basically outlines similar tohow the incident command team
down in Placerville on the otherside of the county was running
the incident. We technically weweren't running the fire. All we
were doing is managing our cityand the community and getting
them prepared for an evacuation.
So with the Emergency OperationsCenter, it basically takes
(11:35):
department heads and they theyfill out the different positions
for an Emergency OperationCenter, which is finance
section, logistics section,operations, planning and Public
Information Officers andliaisons. And so we take, for
example, the city attorney. Sheis the city's liaison when the
Emergency Operations Center isactivated, the Parks and Rec
(11:56):
Department Director. She runslogistics section, the Police
Chief, he runs operationsection. And so these different
entities throughout the city,they have dual roles. So that's
why we had to have our drillsthroughout the year leading up
to this. Because you're askingsomeone that's been, you know,
running Parks and Rec for foryears in the city, to take on
(12:17):
this position in a very naturaldisaster. And so that's that's
basically how the EOC is is setup.
Megan Kay (12:26):
So circling back to you, Amanda, the reason I wanted
to loop you in is because youexperienced the evacuation. So
just like Chief was sayingearlier, about once the EOC is
formed, that kind of sends amessage to the community. I know
that it's a different fireprotection district you're in,
Lake Valley, but what was itlike for you?
Amanda Milici (12:46):
Yeah, so I actually evacuated twice,
because I evacuated fromChristmas Valley on Sunday, and
that was Sunday, I want to saythe 29th, August 29th and I
evacuated from Christmas Valleyto my partner's parents house in
the city, and they live by thecollege. And we kind of thought
(13:11):
we would at least have a coupledays there, you know, we had no
idea how fast the fire wasmoving. And then the next
morning, probably just like 12hours later, we evacuated from
the city. So it was, yeah, twoevacuations within 24 hours.
Yeah. I mean, it was definitelyreally surreal when the Caldor
(13:32):
Fire first started, I justdidn't even have any worry that
it would, you know, come intothe Tahoe Basin. And as it
inched closer and closer, it waskind of like, Huh, that's not
ideal, but still, I mean, couldit really crash Echo Summit? And
then once the evacuationwarnings were issued for
(13:52):
Christmas Valley, then it wasreally like, Okay, this is this
is real. And then once thewarnings turned into orders, and
then once the whole city wasevacuated. It was like, All
right, this is really happening.
It was, it all just happened soquickly that went from, you
know, oh, there's no way thiscould happen, to oh, we're,
we're in the middle of it now.
Megan Kay (14:17):
Wildfire evacuations are stressful, and often there's
not much notice before it's timeto leave. In order to leave
quickly and safely, when asked,prepare for evacuation now and
pack a go bag before anemergency happens. A go bag
should be easily accessible andpacked with at least three days
of supplies for each member ofyour family, including pets.
(14:41):
Visit tahoelivingwithfire.com tolearn more.
Clive Savacool (14:44):
I can't emphasize enough the preparing
side of the evacuation, and Ikind of would tell everyone that
the key to the solid evacuationgoing smooth was having strong
relationships, planning purposesor planning process and acting,
(15:08):
I'm sorry, acting early,relationships and planning. And
so we spent that full weekbefore the evacuation working
with our partners. It's, we hadto find busses. We had to
identify the demographics whowouldn't have cars, we had to
find evacuation shelters thatwould take pets. We had to
(15:30):
identify what to do with thehospital, because that was going
to be a different evacuationwith different triggers. We
identified neighborhoods becauseit wasn't just which
neighborhoods closest to thefire. If we found a neighborhood
that might have a demographicdoesn't have cars they might
evacuate before a neighborhoodthat's actually closer to the
actual incident. So a lot ofplanning went into that. And on
(15:50):
the morning of the 30th thatMonday, I worked the EOC that
night before, so I was up allnight, and I would drive up Echo
Summit every couple hours take alook at the progress and with
the predicted fire behavior andthe weather. When the rest of
the EOC staff came in thatmorning, got together the Police
(16:11):
Chief and the City Manager, ourliaisons from the incident, and
basically said, You know whatthis fire could get through the
city today with the way it'sit's going, and if we just are
passive about this, and we waitfor the incident command post in
Placerville to make the call foran evacuation, it might not be
until the afternoon, and wemight end up evacuating people
(16:33):
into the night, which would be achallenge, especially since we
were only going to do one routeout of town, which was highway
50 through Stateline. So wedidn't want to use 89 North due
to the the narrow road that itis. And if one car broke down,
or car accident happened, tojust stop everything, and we
have to start directingresources that way. So what we
(16:56):
decided is we got together withthe EOC from the Sheriff's
Department, came up with ourplan, and then send it over to
the incident management team,who was running the incident
itself. And they because wewanted their endorsement, even
though technically are thegoverning the law enforcement
agency with jurisdiction istechnically the one that makes
the decision to evacuate, westill wanted to have the
(17:18):
blessing of everybody else thatwas involved in the incident,
and so I think we met at 8amwith the Sheriff's Department,
and the incident bought off onit, and it was at 9:18, that
morning that we started sendingout the first red alerts to
evacuate. So it actually wentvery smooth as far as the
(17:38):
triggers, and it was set up instages to evacuate the
community. There, there werebumps in the road, as there
always are. So somenotifications went out earlier
than we'd hoped with some of theneighborhoods. But ultimately,
the evacuation, despite the fourand a half hours of traffic, it
went as smooth as it could,given that we're trying to
(17:58):
evacuate that many people outone direction of the city.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (18:01):
Chief, can you just to help us stay on
track with the timeline. Whatday did you guys evacuate,
folks?
Clive Savacool (18:11):
I believe is Monday, the 30th. At least that
was the bulk of it. We did doChristmas Valley that Sunday,
the day before.
Megan Kay (18:20):
And then how do you how did you notify the
neighborhoods of evacuation? Wasit a door to door thing, or did
you guys use text alerts?
Clive Savacool (18:33):
We use red alert, and we use door to door.
And so before, I can't rememberwhich day it was, maybe that
Friday before the evacuation. Soseveral days beforehand, we had
a huge influx of law enforcementcome into South Lake Tahoe. The
concern was that if the fireblew up, they wouldn't be able
to get up Highway 50, and so allthose law enforcement officers
(18:55):
would have to go around to getinto South Lake so we had them
all staged in South Lake Tahoeat our City Hall several days
before the evacuation. And sothe days leading up to the
evacuation, they would driveneighborhoods, and they would
get head counts, they would putnotes on doors, and then when
the actual evacuation tookplace, all those law enforcement
(19:15):
officers were out in thestreets, knocking on doors on
loudspeakers, basically usheringpeople out of town.
Megan Kay (19:21):
I don't want to interrupt the timeline. I was
just curious about how thelogistics of notifying those
people work.
Clive Savacool (19:28):
Yeah, that's how the initial code red alerts went
out. We, we did have some alsoplanning with the Visitors
Authority leading up to thatevacuation several days
beforehand. We, tried to getthem to get messaging out, and
they were very cooperative withgetting messages out to tourists
saying, don't come to Tahoe.
Every news interview I would dothe few days before the actual
evacuation, I would tell people,you know, their Bay Area news
(19:50):
stations and Sacramento newsstations, I'd tell them, now
isn't the time to come to Tahoe.
Even if you were able to get ahotel, it's going to be smokey.
Businesses are closed and theair quality is horrible, so
don't come to Tahoe. We also didplanning for the evacuation,
where we put flyers out in thecommunity at hotels vacation
(20:11):
rentals that had a QR code onthem. So if anybody checked into
a hotel, or if they were intown, we asked hotel desks and
such to how people scan them andthen they could register for
Code Red as they came into town.
So we did a major campaign ofjust getting everybody signed up
prior to.
Megan Kay (20:28):
If people had vacations planned to South Lake.
What a time, you know? I mean,besides just the danger of the
fire, the smoke was reallyintense.
Clive Savacool (20:37):
Yeah, I can't remember which news outlet it
was but it reported that SouthLake Tahoe had the worst air
quality on earth for a day ortwo there.
Megan Kay (20:46):
That's not the record. You want to have.
Clive Savacool (20:48):
No.
Megan Kay (20:54):
Communities located in wildfire prone areas. Need to
take extra measures to livesafely. There are many ways to
prepare communities andproperties for wildfire,
including creating andmaintaining adequate defensible
space and hardening homes towithstand wildfire. This could
mean altering or replacingcertain components of the home.
Our wildfire home retrofit guidewill help you better prepare
your home and communities forwildfire. You can find the guide
(21:17):
in the resources section of ourwebsite at livingwithfire.com
So what were some of the justout of curiosities, you
described some of the some ofthe challenges. What are some of
the, maybe like highlights andkudos, things that really went
really well.
Clive Savacool (21:39):
I think the collaboration between agencies.
We had so much going on in andoutside of our own jurisdictions
that it it's you're heavilydependent on other agencies to
work with you, and we don'talways have the same priorities.
You know, our concern, we madeclear, is to get our community
(21:59):
safe, get them out of town,protect their homes while
they're gone, the incidentmanagement team who's running to
the command post, they want toget the fire under control. You
know, they might not want torepopulate as fast as us,
because they're trying to managethe incident. If they have
people flying back into town,it's gonna be harder for them to
have resources. So I think thatus all embracing a level of
(22:20):
humility and recognizing thateven though it's a stressful
situation, we're all running onfumes, getting very little
sleep. My firefighters andmyself were all evacuated from
our own homes. I think eventhough the stress level is
really high, I just can'temphasize enough how well other
stakeholders and everybodyworked great together. You know,
(22:41):
the Lake Valley Fire Chief, himand I were in constant contact
when we saw the fire was headingtowards Christmas Valley. Our
message to them was, just tellus what you need. We'll send you
every resource we got. And so itreally brought, I think, not
just the community, but all thestakeholders together. And I
think that was a real highpoint.
Megan Kay (23:00):
Could you give us a maybe a few bullet points of
some of the key lessons thatwere learned during the
evacuation, and then also howyou're going to incorporate
those lessons going forward?
Clive Savacool (23:11):
Overall, we, I don't think we made any glaring
mistakes, or there's littlethings that we learned, such as
having a fleet of tow trucksready to go during the
evacuation, to get cars out ofthe way or out of the evacuation
zones, should they break down. Ithink that recognizing that
evacuation plans are a working,living document, so we can never
(23:35):
just file it and say we're good.
We've we've checked that box.
I've been tasked with becomingthe kind of coming up with an
evacuation plan for all of LakeTahoe with the Lake Tahoe Basin
Fire Chiefs Association and sothe group I'm working with on
that, we're going to take thelessons learned from this
basically create sections foreach county in the basin, so
(23:57):
that they have at theirfingertips, locations you can
get busses, the differentutility companies. Having a plan
in place so that if you do callfor an evacuation, you don't
have to look anything up.
There's already a playbook readyto go, and those playbooks are
going to need constant updating.
So I think those are some of thekey lessons. We were just very
(24:18):
fortunate because we built ourevacuation plan literally a
month before finished it, amonth before this, this took
place. So the, like, theplanning piece of it is just
huge.
Megan Kay (24:29):
So there's, like, many tiers right of this
evacuation, like, there's theindividual that has to be
prepared for evacuation, andthen maybe they own property
that then that has to beprepared for their property, for
fire and evacuation. And thenthere's the agencies that are
working, and it's, if I feellike there has to be some sort
of upward flow, things have toflow nicely. Otherwise there's,
(24:53):
there's just more hiccups thatcould potentially happen. It
seems like.
Clive Savacool (24:58):
Yeah, and having the the constant communication,
whether it be through the firechiefs association, through our
Fire Marshals, I think that onedynamic that South Lake Tahoe is
taking a step forward on iswe're creating a formal Fire
Prevention Bureau so that thefire department, in the past has
(25:18):
used on duty crews to send outfor inspections and defensible
space work. And moving forward,we're going to have a Fire
Marshal, dedicated FireInspector and part-time Fire and
Defensible Space Inspectors. Sowe're really revamping how we
address fire prevention in SouthLake Tahoe. And in conjunction
with that, we're going to workwith other stakeholders and
(25:41):
organizations such as yoursthrough these programs to make
sure our community is wellinformed and they're prepared.
Megan Kay (25:48):
For folks who may not understand this, the sort of
relationship between likeindividual homeowners and
agencies. So if they, if theywant to make their homes more, I
guess, fire safe or they want toprepare for for wildfire. They
need, sometimes they need someexpert guidance, right? And so
those are the agencyprofessionals that come out and
(26:09):
kind of assess their homes. Butit's a little hard for
firefighters to do that duringthe summer when they're on call.
Clive Savacool (26:17):
Yeah. So we're, we're really putting a focus on
the fire prevention side, notthat we haven't had that focus,
but we're just making adedicated division. And really
the firefighters, we have thebusiest fire agency in the
basin, they're running callspretty frequently. And so having
them tasked with these otherprojects, it's loading their
plate up with a lot. And so wereally, really need a dedicated
(26:41):
fire prevention bureau. TheCaldor Fire just kind of help
shine a light on it. The cityalready had it in the in the
strategic plan, not the actualFire Prevention Bureau Division,
but just fire prevention ingeneral. And so these inspectors
are Defensible Space Inspectorsthat go out. This was the first
year we used them, and they hada very warm reception. So as you
(27:03):
mentioned, getting the communityinformed with two inspectors, we
determined we could do theentire city, which is just over
15,000 parcels, in about 18months. And so when they would
go out and they would meet withpeople and educate them, it was
actually a very warm reception,as we were a bit concerned that
it would be perceived as theyard police.
Megan Kay (27:31):
So I thought that was an excellent run through of the
evacuation. I don't have anyother evacuation related
questions. Amanda, do you?
Amanda Milici (27:42):
So from a resident perspective, I felt
like we got pretty lucky in thatwe had a lot of time to prepare
for this evacuation. You know,like I said that the fire was
really creeping and creepingtowards the Basin, and so you
know us as residents, you know,we were just trying to get every
extra pine needle off the deck,and, like, really packing the
(28:04):
car, and feel like I had a lotof time to prepare, and I would
assume, from an agencyperspective, maybe that's the
same. And so how does, howdifferent does the evacuation
plan and like the execution ofthe evacuation plan, look when,
when or if a fire starts in theBasin. And there's not, you
(28:26):
know, those that week of time toreally prepare?
Clive Savacool (28:30):
Yeah, it's a great question. And I think that
the previous fires they've hadin the basin are probably some
examples of just a really fastmoving fire that you don't have
the luxury of a week leading upto it to educate people. And so
that's why front loading theeducation side is so important,
(28:50):
starting in the spring, makingsure people are signed up for
Code Red, working out the bugslike we didn't realize it until
we had some mistakes that peopleneeded to sign up for Code Red
online and not through the app.
If they signed on on through theapp, it didn't work, and we
didn't realize that until we didthe evacuations on Echo Summit.
(29:11):
So working those details out sothat if you do have a major fire
that is moving quickly, and wedon't have a week to get through
it, that you're able to send outthose notifications on a
moment's notice, and it's notgoing to be the first time that
that our citizens have heard beprepared to evacuate that
season. So like the Angora Fire,that one moved very fast, so we
(29:37):
need to make sure the public iseducated well in advance.
Amanda Milici (29:38):
Yeah, that's a really good point. And I think
one thing that I have personallyfound challenging is, like, the
balance between, you know, doingall of that front loading and
education and outreach, but alsohaving folks be really
interested and engaged in it.
(30:00):
I'm hopeful that the CaldorFire, that the momentum will,
you know, continue for years tocome. But I've definitely found
it challenging in the past,like, you know, April, March,
May, folks just aren't thinkingabout fire as much as they
should be for planning. Whereas,like July, August, there's smoke
in the air. It's hot, people arereally thinking about it, but at
(30:22):
that point, you know, the firecould start at any moment. So I
don't want to say it's too lateto prepare. It's never too late
to prepare, but feel like atthat point it's there's less
time. And so it's interesting tosort of, yeah, navigate finding
that balance between having alot of time to prepare and get
folks ready, but also gettingfolks really thinking about
fire.
Clive Savacool (30:43):
It's a great question and great point,
because people do have shortmemories. And I think if we'd
only had the Tamarack Fire andthere was that concern of
evacuation, it didn't quite hithome, like when people literally
have to leave their home, and,you know, and unfortunately,
evacuating and going throughthese types of incidents is
(31:04):
psychologically traumatic. Andso people that have lived here
and lived through the AngoraFire this, this was ripping off
a bandaid that opening up an oldscar. And so I think, because
this really hit home, literally,I think people are going to
remember it come thisspringtime. They are going to be
conscious about signing up forCode Red, and they're going to
(31:25):
listen when our inspectors comethrough town, because it's no
longer this hey, let's clean upyour lot for something that may
never happen. It's like, hey,clean up your lots, in case we
have a summer like last summer.
So we're optimistic that peopleare going to have a memory of
the Caldor Fire, and they'lltake it to heart.
Jamie Roice-Gomes (31:45):
I've noticed that people will they have,
like, what do they say the halflife of an emergency is like six
months, but honestly, I feellike it's shorter than that now
these days, and I hope that wecan continue that momentum.
Megan Kay (31:59):
What is, is there anything unique about working in
Lake Tahoe in regards topreparing for an event like
this?
Clive Savacool (32:08):
Yeah, I say that something that Tahoe has going
forward is, despite havingmultiple counties and couldn't
tell you how many different fireagencies, different state lines,
we all recognize that we can'thandle any major incident on our
own, and so nobody is tooterritorial or has their ego get
(32:30):
in the way to where they say,well, we don't need any help.
We're going to handle our ownbusiness. We all recognize that
we can't handle a major incidentour own, and we recognize that
the community is what matters.
And so we then make sure we'redoing right by them versus our
own interests. I came from anagency with 300 firefighters and
30 fire stations, and so wecould handle an emergency on our
(32:52):
own. That's not the case here.
And so fortunately, everybody inTahoe gets that. And so we all
play nice in the sandbox to makesure we provide the best service
we can.
Megan Kay (33:04):
Thank you for listening to the Living with
Fire Podcast. Funding for thispodcast was provided by the
Southern Nevada Public LandManagement Act of 1994 in
cooperation with Tahoe RCD andUniversity of Nevada Reno
Extension an EEO AAAinstitution.
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