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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — As firefighters gain more ground on the Caldor Fire, officials are starting to discuss plans for allowing thousands of residents forced to flee the wildfire that has raged through the forests southwest of Lake Tahoe, engulfing several small communities in its wake, to return home.

But the area will remain a hazy ghost town — save for a steady stream of firefighters, emergency personnel and wandering bears and coyotes — at least through Labor Day weekend.

While nearly 6,000 residents on the eastern flanks of the fire near Omo Ranch and Fair Play have received the green light to return home, about 45,000 remain under evacuation orders, including all residents of South Lake Tahoe and those living along 25 miles of Lake Tahoe’s west and south shores from Tahoma to the California-Nevada border.

Brian Newman, Cal Fire operations section chief, said Friday that it would be at least three or four days “at a minimum” until most evacuees would be allowed to come home, quashing any hope that residents and visitors would be able to return during the long holiday weekend.

“We understand that this has an impact on their lives, but we’re doing our best to ensure that they have a home and a community to return to,” Newman said, adding that there was still much work to be done.

The famed lake, which is usually buzzing with boats by Friday afternoon of a long holiday weekend, instead was empty, with helicopters occasionally flying overhead and drawing water to throw on problem areas of the blaze. A line of black soot and ash lined the lake’s typically pristine waterline.

In addition to ensuring that the fire is no longer a threat to nearby communities, utility crews must come through and inspect electricity, gas, sewer and water infrastructure, ensuring that they are all safe to resume operations.

“They shut off electricity and natural gas because some of those utilities can be harmed or cause issues for fire crews,” Newman said. “Now we have to go back in and make sure that they’re not damaged so that when gas, for instance, is introduced back into the lines, there are no leaks that could cause life-safety issues for the public and for firefighters.”

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. reported that 2,293 customers are without power due to the Caldor Fire and that the agency has identified 633 locations of damaged power lines, though they expect that number to rise when utility crews are allowed access to more areas along Highway 50.

As of Friday, the Caldor Fire has scorched 212,907 acres, destroying at least 661 homes in the process. The blaze is 29% contained — nearly double the containment firefighters had established on Monday when evacuation orders were first issued for South Lake Tahoe.

Crews on the western flanks of the fire — where all the containment lines are concentrated — are patrolling and mopping up any small spot fires, putting out smoking fuels and taking down any fire-weakened trees they come across to prevent any flare-ups or safety concerns after more evacuation orders are lifted along Highway 50.

While almost all residents in the Tahoe basin will find their homes still standing, the same cannot be said for hundreds of people who own homes further west along Highway 50, especially those who lived around the Sierra-at-Tahoe resort and Grizzly Flats, where the blaze first erupted on Aug. 14. Many of those residents will be returning to rubble rather than the homes they fled from more than two weeks ago as the fast-moving wildfire raged through the forests of El Dorado and Amador counties. Cal Fire officials have only reported two homes damaged in the basin.

At the evacuation center in Garderville, Nevada, most of the evacuees from around Lake Tahoe had already been moved to Reno by Friday to make room for residents who had evacuated on the Nevada side of the lake. Two U.S. Forest Service officers stood outside with fire maps, offering information to locals about when they could move back.

“I’ve watched specials on the Paradise and Camp Fires, and I wasn’t going to let that happen to me,” said Paul Smith, 62, who fled from his home off the Kingsbury Grade in Nevada on Monday and was staying at a hotel in Topaz Lake. “I’m doing fine. I’m just getting sick of all this smoke.”

Severe smoke conditions and harmful air quality are one reason officials are urging visitors to stay away from the areas around Lake Tahoe that still remain open, like Truckee and Incline Village on the north shore.

“The smoke is a serious hazard, so we’re really asking people to avoid this area and recreate further away from these fires,” said Jennifer Chapman, public affairs officer for the Eldorado National Forest, which will be closed until at least Sept. 30 due to the fire.

Once the blaze dies down, an emergency rehabilitation team will go into the burn zone of El Dorado to assess the impact to the forest’s trees and soil, she said.

“The problem is that it’s a very large active wildfire with a lot of uncontained parts, and our main concern is safety and making sure firefighters have the room they need to do their work,” Chapman said.

Oksana Cabristante, 27, of South Lake Tahoe, said she understands the need for a lengthy evacuation order and is prepared to go at least another week monitoring the situation at her home through the security camera next to the front door.

She has been staying at a friend’s house in Gardnerville with her two young children, two dogs, two parrots and her husband, doing her best to keep her mind off of the dangers that still linger around her hometown.

“I’m just trying to stay strong,” she said outside of an animal evacuation center at the Douglas County Fairgrounds after donating some pet supplies. “I know a lot of people aren’t as lucky as me to have a friend to stay with.

“A lot of people come out here with nothing and, unfortunately, too many people will also end up going home to nothing.”