Caldor Fire evacuations, as fire flared up overnight
The fire appeared to have flared up overnight in the Grizzly Flats area, which had been largely obliterated Monday night. Early Wednesday, hot spots were still burning throughout what had once been neighborhoods, but a handful of houses had survived, some because they had defensible space and no trees nearby. A retirement home belonging to Rege and Janet Brannagan on Meadow Glen Drive appeared to be one of only two that survived the fire. Their son, Mike Brannagan, said in a phone interview from San Luis Obispo Wednesday that his parents had evacuated Monday night, hours before the mandatory order to get out. “They were smart,” Brannagan said. “They didn’t want to be scrambling at 3 in the morning.” The family had managed to pack photos, paintings and other items to take to safety as they evacuated to Cameron Park, Brannagan said, adding that he wonders what his parents will be returning to with much of the community destroyed. “The crazy part was my dad just talked to me about it Saturday because of the Dixie Fire,” he said. The American Red Cross in Northern California said shortly after 8:30 a.m. that the Cameron Park Community Center was full. A shelter at the Diamond Springs Fire Hall was also reportedly full. The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office was directing residents in need of shelter to go to Green Valley Church, located at 3500 Missouri Flat Road in Placerville. Authorities went door to door in areas of Pollock Pines early Wednesday ordering residents to leave the area. Although a mandatory evacuation had been ordered Tuesday night, law enforcement officials at first took no immediate efforts to evacuate residents or to set up roadblocks to keep visitors from coming in. That changed shortly after midnight, when law enforcement sirens began blaring throughout town and authorities set up roadblocks and began ordering people in the community of 7,000 to leave immediately, including residents of the Sly Park area who had taken refuge in Pollock Pines earlier in the day. Several groups had set up camp in a CVS drug store parking lot Tuesday after being evacuated from the Sly Park area. The fire had chewed through forest land above the Sly Park Recreation Area through most of Tuesday. But some chose to ignore the Wednesday morning evacuation order. Candie Calderon, who was sitting in a pickup truck filled with belongings and had parked a trailer in the CVS lot as a temporary home, said law enforcement officers came through the lot early Wednesday ordering people to leave. “They told us they were going to clear the parking lots,” Calderon said. “They said they were going to clear all of Pollock Pines, to go down the hill.” Calderon said she was evacuated Tuesday afternoon from the Sly Park area. “We’ve only been here a little bit,” she said. “We’re debating. Can they make us?” She said she did not know whether her house had survived the flames. Authorities were concerned early Wednesday with the prospect of the fire jumping Highway 50 near Fresh Pond and forcing the closure of the roadway. Although ash was falling in the area, there were no obvious signs of flames near the highway between Pollock Pines and the south fork of the American River early Wednesday, and firefighting crews were positioning themselves along frontage roads near the highway. As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, the highway has not closed.
