Tahoe Basin - Community Led Proactive Evacuation Study
and 2025 Legal Challenges

Tahoe Sierra Clean Air Coalition commissioned a region-wide evacuation study simulating evacuation times during worst-case wildfire scenarios in the Lake Tahoe basin, which borders CA and NV. In 2025, when local officials made decisions that ignored substantive new evidence, multiple community groups launched legal challenges.

Aerial view of a city near a large lake, with snow on rooftops and surrounding trees, mountains in the background.

Evacuating Tahoe’s largest city could take 11 hours in a wildfire, study says

Line of cars on a city street with blurred background

The Tahoe Basin experienced widespread evacuations during the 2021 Caldor Fire.

This prime tourist region attracts millions of visitors a year. Today, evacuation could take some people up to 14 hours.

Doug Flaherty, the coalition’s executive director, said Tahoe Sierra Clean Air commissioned the study, which used artificial intelligence interpreted by wildfire experts, to simulate a variety of scenarios, designed to urge public agencies overseeing development around the lake to heed their  warnings that roads are already over capacity.

“We wanted to shine the light on how long it’s going to take to safely move people out,”  said Flaherty, an Incline Village resident and retired fire battalion chief.

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Learn More: Case Study: Tahoe Basin: CA & NV: Legal Challenges based on Substantive New Evidence

California and Nevada-based groups continue to advocate for regional analyses given cross-jurisdictional evacuation choke points, especially in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. These community groups worked for years to educate the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and Tahoe Basin county decision-makers about escalating evacuation risks associated with reducing setbacks and providing incentives to build high density housing in town-centers and other evacuation choke points.

In 2025, decision-makers ignored new evidence and cumulative impact findings from government commissioned as well as the independent evacuation studies. Both Washoe and Placer counties’ decision makers approved the Regional Planning Agency’s Phase 2 Housing Amendment even though it relied on an inadequate amendment to a 2016/17 environmental impact assessment.

Community groups were forced to challenge in court, as these decisions will likely create a Tahoe Basin evacuation crisis. The Plaintiffs argue that more rigorous, region-wide analyses are required in a Subsequent Environmental Study given substantive new evidence and wildfire behavior modeling that demonstrate how changed conditions result in much longer evacuation times.