"Evacuating the Tahoe basin in summer could take 14 hours, and 99% of properties in South Lake Tahoe are at risk — yet new resorts are being built in high-danger fire areas."
"Gary Gerren, the affable fire chief in the community of Fallen Leaf Lake, is serious about protecting the few hundred full-time residents and the thousands of summer daytrippers who descend on his tiny alpine enclave.
His constant concern: How will he keep them all safe from wildfires?
“I burn the place down every few months,” Gerren said, explaining that he regularly runs computerized fire simulations — constructing a virtual wildfire bearing down on his community — to solve the puzzle of how to direct people away from a fire.
The slow and bumpy 5-mile road to Fallen Leaf Lake, southwest of South Lake Tahoe, affords only one way in and one way out — a potential deathtrap."
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