Protect Your South Lake Tahoe Home from Wildfire
The Caldor Fire burned to the city's edge in 2021, proving no Tahoe Basin community is immune. Understand your property's specific vulnerabilities and take action before the next fire season.
South Lake Tahoe sits at the southern tip of Lake Tahoe in a narrow corridor of development surrounded by the Eldorado National Forest and Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. With a population of roughly 21,400, the city represents one of the largest concentrated populations in the Sierra Nevada—and one of the most fire-exposed. The 2021 Caldor Fire, which burned over 221,000 acres and destroyed more than 1,000 structures in El Dorado County, brought mandatory evacuations to the entire city and forever changed how residents think about wildfire preparedness.
The geography that makes South Lake Tahoe beautiful also makes it dangerous. Dense stands of lodgepole pine, Jeffrey pine, and white fir crowd residential neighborhoods from Al Tahoe to the Y to Bijou. Many homes were built in the 1960s and 70s before modern fire-resistant building codes existed, with wood shake roofs and decks extending into the forest canopy. Highway 50 remains the primary evacuation route for the entire south shore, and the August 2021 evacuation demonstrated how quickly that single corridor can gridlock when 20,000+ residents flee simultaneously.