Lake Tahoe winds calmer
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Firefighters racing the weather for control of a turbulent wildfire near this popular resort got a bit of a break Wednesday as high winds forecast to arrive by early afternoon held off, giving crews time to shore up their defenses.
While the wind picked up slightly after dark, the day of calm allowed firefighters to fortify their lines, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
They were trying to keep the wildfire from consuming more buildings near the small town of Meyers, where it started, and from reaching several densely populated subdivisions near where one flank of the blaze jumped a containment line.
The fire has destroyed 200 homes since it emerged over the weekend.
"The worst-case scenario is the fire would break out in multiple locations," said Rich Hawkins, a U.S. Forest Service fire commander.
"The biggest problem is just that there are so many homes in a combustible environment."
The governors of the two states Lake Tahoe straddles, California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nevada’s Jim Gibbons, toured neighborhoods charred by the fire.
Examining the remains of a house in the Tahoe Mountain neighborhood, just outside South Lake Tahoe, the ex-bodybuilder Schwarzenegger hoisted a dumbbell from the debris, marveling that it was one of the few objects to survive. "Amazing," he told an aide.
Little else survived the inferno. Metal mattress coils, a bicycle, tools, half-melted televisions, concrete foundations and chimneys were about all that was left of the burned houses. Some neighboring buildings stood virtually untouched.
"It could have been much worse, if we hadn’t had such well-trained firefighters," said Schwarzenegger, mentioning his decision in May to free up more money for firefighters and equipment after the dry winter.
California’s insurance commissioner, citing figures from the El Dorado County sheriff’s department, pegged the total property damage at $150 million.
Hundreds of homes within view of the lake remained under mandatory evacuation orders, while residents of already damaged areas were still being asked to stay away.
Many returned anyway — at least long enough to stuff more belongings into cars and trucks before leaving again. Others came back and camped out, readying garden hoses and even buckets to douse embers expected to land nearby if winds kicked up as expected. In all, about 2,000 people were evacuated, according to South Lake Tahoe Police Lt. Martin Hale.
The blaze has charred more than 3,000 acres — about 4.7 square miles — and was 44 percent contained on Wednesday, fire officials said. With stiffer gusts in the forecast, officials acknowledged that more homes, including some in the most affluent waterfront neighborhoods, could be threatened.
Several officials said the wind could also present a danger to firefighters themselves.
"It really is hard to predict what these winds are going to do," said Kelly Martin, a fire behavior analyst who addressed hundreds of firefighters from across the state at a pre-dawn briefing Wednesday.
Officials thought they had a handle on the original edge of the blaze on Tuesday, but a surprisingly big gust of wind in the afternoon was all it took to push firefighters off the line they had held for more than a day outside a 300-home subdivision.
Authorities have said they believe the fire was caused by human activity, but there was no indication it was set intentionally.
