Tahoe Basin Wildfire Evacuation Simulations Spotlight Infrastructure Limitations, Public Safety Dangers
Incline Village, Nev., Aug. 28, 2024 – Today, a first-ever independent Tahoe Basin Wildfire Evacuation Analysis, combining artificial intelligence (AI) and real-life Sierra Nevada wildfire experience, reveals Tahoe workers, residents, and visitors to California and Nevada’s iconic Lake Tahoe could face hours-long, potentially life-threatening slow evacuations.
The release of the Placer and Washoe Tahoe North Shore analyses are part of a larger, first-of-its-kind publicly transparent basin-wide evacuation analysis. Commissioned by TahoeCleanAir.org, the models provide hypothetical “no-notice” versus “planned event” evacuation simulations. The models incorporate operational expertise from veteran firefighters and emergency management experts involved in some of the West’s most catastrophic wildfires, including the Camp Fire in and around Paradise, California.
Fire experts use the term “no-notice” for an emerging incident that poses a sudden and immediate threat to human life but may still involve evacuation orders. Historically, no-notice evacuations have overwhelmed emergency responder resources and defied the rapid implementation of emergency operation plans.
Based on first-hand knowledge of decades of extreme fire behavior and with AI technology, experts from Pyro Analysis and Ladris conducted over 400 Tahoe wide evacuation simulations to help provide accurate highway and feeder road capacity limitations.
Further, AI evacuation modeling software estimated potential evacuation times based on a variety of road closures that create choke points. These bottlenecks could reasonably be expected during a fast-moving wildfire evacuation in peak summer tourist season, which coincides with peak wildfire season.
Three other geographical Tahoe study areas will soon be available. Those are Douglas Tahoe, El Dorado South Shore Tahoe and West Shore Tahoe.
The Placer Tahoe and Washoe Tahoe simulations assume no notice fire events from different directions with realistic road closures. The analysis also discusses key items that could further lengthen evacuation times.
Until now, no such publicly transparent, in-depth analysis of Lake Tahoe’s limited infrastructure has been provided in connection with Tahoe land use planning and project approvals by any of the five Tahoe facing counties or the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). Yet TRPA recently approved land use code changes to allow increased building height, density and coverage and continue to approve visitor attractions that will materially change the Tahoe environment, increase the total number of people in the basin, and elevate safety threats.
Placer County last adopted increased town center density land use amendments to its 2016 Tahoe Basin Area Plan Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on October 31, 2023. Placer used a controversial brief environmental addendum approval process rather than providing a more focused in-depth subsequent EIR.
The AI generated Placer evacuation simulations reveal a nine to fourteen-plus hour evacuation time depending on road closure conditions. This is in stark contrast to the 2016 Placer County, Environmental Impact Statement, which estimated evacuation time for the study area at 3.7 hours. Washoe Tahoe AI generated simulations include potential closures of SR28 at Stateline and Sand Harbor resulting in eight and nine hour wait times. The heavily visited now international destination East Shore Trail and Sand Harbor State Park, get thousands of visitors by personal vehicle, bus, bicycle, and by foot.
Evacuation of the Tahoe basin is of paramount importance. Annual visitation to the Tahoe basin (207,000 acres) now exceeds that of America’s most popular National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains, which spans 522,419 acres. One report indicates Tahoe gets as many as 60-million-person trips annually. Many visitors are unaware that Tahoe spans two states, five counties and multiple communities. They simply think they’re ‘in Tahoe.’
“The public and land use planners deserve to be aware of potential evacuation outcomes. The carrying capacity in the Tahoe Basin is already beyond strained,” said Doug Flaherty, TahoeCleanAir.org, a former southern California Fire Combat Battalion Chief. “This analysis underscores the need for Tahoe policy makers to provide better, more transparent public safety planning. Officials need to take a reality-based approach to land use planning decisions to help avoid issues experienced in other major wildfires.”
Flaherty added: “While this independent analysis is aimed at raising government land use planning agency and public awareness of potential evacuation limitations in Tahoe, it is not intended to take the place of, or be utilized in connection with, official government evacuation planning or emergency event decision-making. At a minimum however, Tahoe communities and visitors should expect nothing less than what’s laid out in Best Practices for Wildfire Evacuation published by the California State Attorney General.” Learn more here.
The additional Tahoe area evacuation analyses containing respective evacuation simulations will be available in September 2024.
Simulation illustrations and added analysis is available at TahoeCleanAir.org.