When thousands of South Lake Tahoe residents returned to their homes Monday after evacuating during the Heat Fire, officials issued a warning that they be on the lookout for bears walking through evacuated neighborhoods, looting garbage and houses, looking for food, CBS San Francisco reported.
Some residents returning home found they were not alone in their neighborhoods. Authorities also warned that in the absence of humans, bears had gone into the city, scattering rubbish everywhere that needs to be collected.
CBS San Francisco
“The delicate balance between humans and bones has been upset” and anyone who thinks a bear may have entered the home should call law enforcement, El Dorado County Sheriff’s Sergeant . Said Simon Brown.
Although calls for nuisance to bears are not uncommon as animals live in the nearby forest, these calls have been increasing during the fire. Officials said they have received 15 calls from prowling bears over the past week.
Although firefighters have been able to stop the advance of the fire south of Lake Tahoe, firefighters continue in other areas of the massive fire.
The Caldor fire stood at 216,358 acres on Monday morning with only 44% containment. Crews were still battling flames and hot spots near Wrights Lake, Lower Echo Lake and amidst the stones and cliffs of the desolate desert north of Highway 50 and the Caples Lake area near Kirkland.
“While we haven’t had a major race all day (Sunday), there has been a slight rise in fire behavior,” Tim Ernst, chief of operations for the western area, told crew leaders in the information session on Monday morning. “It’s a trend we need to watch for over the next few days.”
Ernst said there was solid containment along the entire western edge of the fire, where it began Aug. 14.
Ernst said the shooting near Wrights Lake was “extremely difficult” because of the terrain.
He added that hot spot explosions around Lake Caples, near Kirkwood, “prove we’re not out of the woods yet” by containing all the fire.
“The fire pushes all the perimeters (near the Kirkwood Bowl),” Ernest said. “Even last night at 4 or 5 in the morning we had (hot) points.”
Meanwhile, the head of eastern firefighting operations, Jake Cagle, said rugged, rocky terrain posed a fire challenge in the desolation desert.
A specially trained team of federal mountain firefighters has been relocated to the area.
“We inserted a crew trained specifically for wilderness areas,” Cagle said. “They’re now working in the Ralston Peak area, and they’re going straight to the desert stuff. Depending on the weather, the smoke, we have rappels ready to rappelling and support these firefighters.”
Rappeler firefighters descend by ropes from helicopters to fight forest fires in remote and inaccessible areas.
On Sunday, the evacuation order that forced the 22,000 residents to flee their homes when the Caldor fire was shut down was lowered to warn of the city limits of Salt Lake Tahoe.
Immediately, an orderly flow of vehicles headed for the city as the repopulation process began.
“So far it hasn’t been a car rage,” Clive Savacool, South Lake Tahoe’s fire chief, said in a briefing on Sunday evening. “We’re happy to see people moving slowly, just because the city needs time to prepare.”
The sheriff said evacuation orders were still in effect for Fallen Leaf Lake, Christmas Valley, Meyers and North Upper Truckee.
At its peak, the fire had burned up to 1,000 acres per hour and last month virtually ravaged the small Grizzly Flats community.
But in the last few days the winds had eased and thousands of firefighters took advantage of the best time to hack, burn and splice the lines of fire.
The CBSN documentary “Bring Your Own Brigade” captures the horror and heroism of the deadliest forest fire week in California history and explores the causes and solutions of a global crisis. Play it now in the CBS News app or in Paramount +.