Hanging tough in South Lake Tahoe! - Democratic Underground

Hell Hath No Fury

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Mon Jun-25-07 02:20 PM
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Hanging tough in South Lake Tahoe!

I was up for the week doing some work on my Mom's house. We went to the movies yesterday and saw the first plume of smoke coming back home to the Y. It looked a little close to the house and we couldn't;t get any information on the local radio, so we drove over to the Upper Truckee neighborhood to see what was up. We get there and the mountain behind the last row of houses is on fire -- bad.

Knowing that Tahoe has not had a significant burn in decades and the snow pack was squat this year, my gut told me we had to keep an eye on this.

We went back to her house a mile or so away but we were still unable to get any info that could let us track the fire to see if it was going to effect us. Pissed of, I loaded us in the car and headed back towards Sawmill Road where we could watch the fire's progress.

We moved back away from the fire (keeping a very healthy distance) at least three times before I realized it was heading into town and that Mom's house was in its path. It was weird, we didn't want to overreact by packing up unnecessarily, but I remember vividly the Oakland Hills fire, and I didn't want to wait until the last minute to react. So we picked up the fur babies and hightailed it back to Sawmill to keep watch.

The fire itself was incredible. Huge plumes, turning the sun blood red, whipping the wind up something fierce. It was almost 45 minutes before we saw a real fire presence -- trucks were coming in from all over. We knew it was serious when we stared seeing engines and fire/rescue crews from North Shore and Carson City (both easily a half hour away). And it was well over an hour and a half before we saw the first air support, which was incredibly frustrating because the terrain demanded this be boots on the ground with massive air attacks. We finally got two helicopters with water buckets and a chemical tanker hitting the blaze on our side of the hill. Those three aircraft pounded the crap out of the leading edge of the blaze, with the copters making trip after trip to the lake to refill. The scene was pretty chaotic, with emergency vehicles, tourists, locals, and media all stopping along the road to watch the blaze.

As the fire approached the local high school (three long blocks from my Mom's house) we got word from someone on the street that the area was under mandatory evacuation, so we took a quick trip back to the house to check on our neighbors. Hours later and there was STILL absolutely ZERO information on the radio or TV for anyone to know just how bad and how close the fire was. I started banging on doors to let folks now how close it was, and we drove around as long as we dare telling everyone we saw to was time to adios. From the highway we took one last look at the fire, watching as the fire department created the line they were going to defend. Another three blocks and the fire would be in Tahoe proper and it would be an even bigger disaster.

The evacuation center gave us the name of a local vet who was taking in pets to board for the duration of the fire, and we also got info on local hotels that were giving away free rooms for those who had to be evacuated. Tahoe is a very small town or mostly working class folks and retirees, so Mom found friends at the center who had already lost their homes. The community was coming together beautifully to help the victims and evacuees, but everyone was railing against the lack of a notification system.

We spent the rest of the afternoon further down the road in Tahoe, watching the fire and wondering if Mom had a home left. A friend who lived out by the local golf course offered us rooms, so we finally landed there around 8:00pm. Wendy's house has a wall of windows looking out over the course and the mountain range, and we sat and watched as the range erupted into enormous flames. On this side of the fire, there were two more helicopters with buckets -- but this time they were pulling water from the course's pond, just 40 feet or so from the back deck. That was one fucking surreal hour we spent, with the range on fire and copters buzzing the house every five minutes. Once dark, the drops had to stop for the night and the fire was left to burn. At one point I walked out onto the course to fully take in what was happening -- in the dark, three coyotes running from the fire passed within a few feet of me.

Last night was a long one, with just a few hours sleep. As soon as it was light enough, Mom and I hopped into the car to see if our house was still standing. The whole valley was covered in smoke, making it hard to see and breath. As we got closer and closer to the Y, we quickly realized that the fire fighters had held the line at the high school and saved our neighborhood. We turned right onto her street and saw the yellow and white cabin Bay Area DUers had painted a few summers ago, sooty and covered with ash, but still in one piece. It was a happy moment.

We drove the few blocks to the high school where we got to see just how close the fire had come -- just a few feet from the edge of the practice field in the rear of the school was the scorched edge of the fire had come to. The entire ridge behind the school was still smoldering something fierce, but there was at least four engines there, keeping an eye for any flare ups.

We are still under evacuation orders and will probably not be let back into the house until tomorrow, but we are safe, the house is safe, and no one has been injured or killed so far because of the fire. Thank the gods.

I will try to download the pictures I took -- it really was something to see and experience.