PIONEER, Calif. — The holiday weekend has been devastating for the Bear River Lake Resort after losing its entire lodge to a fire early Sunday morning. Everyone was able to get out safely, but the loss is affecting campers who see it as their own community.
They’re crediting the quick work of Amador firefighters and a recent soaking rain as the reasons the surrounding trees didn’t catch fire and make things much worse.
Ashes and burnt objects are all that’s left of the popular resort lodge.
"(We’ve) never had anything like this happen to us before. I feel like our 30 years is down the drain,” said Bear River Lake Resort co-owner Janette Frazier.
Frazier has poured her heart and soul into the campgrounds for decades. It took a matter of minutes around 2 a.m. Sunday for it to be destroyed.
"The late arrivals alerted us. They were honking their horns. At first, she thought it was someone's car alarm was going off, and then she realized it was more than that,” said camper Carol Holt.
Firefighters arrived in about 20 minutes and Frazier credits their hard work with saving the rest of the resort. The Amador Fire Protection District says its top concern was life and safety with it being a holiday weekend.
"We definitely wanted to make sure that there was no one inside the building. We confirmed that with people here, and obviously we were surrounded by wildlife and a bunch of other buildings, so a big concern was preventing spread to those other buildings and the wildland,” said Battalion Chief Aaron Watkins.
They were able to contain the fire to just the lodge. Investigators are now combing through the rubble to figure out what caused it, but until then Frazier is thinking about moving forward.
"We will rebuild this lodge, we will. You know, the history won't be here… the pictures of the guys fishing and the kids fishing, all that's gone but we'll make new memories and new pictures,” she said.
The resort says it’s still going to be taking in visitors as they come in.
