Moccasin Fire evacuations lifted as containment continues to increase
EL DORADO COUNTY — All evacuation warnings south of Placerville have been lifted after a fire that ignited Wednesday in El Dorado County.
Cal Fire's Amador-El Dorado Unit said the location of the fire was along Moccasin Trail. It has burned 51 acres and containment was at 75% as of Thursday night.
"Just because we've got it 'contained' in a shaky sense of the word, it doesn't have an improved line all the way around. We're still seeing hotspots. We had flare-ups last night," Jason Snyder with the El Dorado County Fire Protection District said Wednesday.
Fire officials are calling it the Moccasin Fire. It originated Tuesday as a structure fire and then spread to the surrounding vegetation. That structure was destroyed. No other structures were damaged.
Mandatory evacuations were in place through late Thursday morning, including for Moccasin Trail. Those orders were then downgraded to evacuation warnings early Thursday afternoon, which were then lifted on Friday.
When the evacuation orders where downgraded to warnings, the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office said residents could return home.
"We had real difficult access getting into some of the areas back there. One-way roads in and out so we were not only encountering people coming in and out but we were bumping into other fire equipment," Snyder said.
An evacuation shelter at the El Dorado County Library on Fairlane Court closed Thursday. A shelter for large animals located at Saureel Vineyards at 1140 Cold Springs Rd. in Placerville also closed.
Rudy Paiva owns "Rudy's Place Bar and Louge" and "That Little Italian Place" on the corner of Oak Hill and Pleasant Valley Roads, which was an area that was under evacuation warnings Tuesday and experienced road closures.
He said they are usually closed on Tuesday but saw all of the commotion of people evacuating and he knew he had to help.
"I opened up my doors because I had a lot of people coming into the parking lot asking if they could park their vehicles here to be safe in the fire," Paiva said.
He said they opened up the restaurant to serve food and drinks to get people out of the heat.
The El Dorado County Fire Protection District said the fire was burning in an area with heavy brush and timber.