September 2021 Conservancy Update

Evacuated Conservancy employees are returning home, allowing our operations to resume. We share the profound gratitude―expressed by so many―to the firefighters and public safety personnel who protected our community from the Caldor Fire.

As I write this, the fire has burned more than 219,000 acres and is 70 percent contained. At one point, the fire caused more than 50,000 people to evacuate. While south shore residents have been able to come home to Tahoe, more than 2,400 people remain evacuated. Our hearts go out to our neighbors outside the Lake Tahoe Basin who lost their homes and businesses.

Here in the Basin, firefighters continue to work on containment lines in the mountains. Thanks to their ceaseless hard work and ingenuity in fighting the blaze, life is returning to something resembling normal here. Tahoe land managers can even begin to look ahead. Conservancy staff has begun inspecting our thousands of south shore properties to see how the fire and fire-management activities have impacted them. We’re taking steps to get our programs and projects back on track. And we look forward to working closely with our Basin partners to help our region recover.

Jane Freeman
Acting Executive Director, California Tahoe Conservancy