Making slow progress

Firefighters made guarded progress today in battling the roughly 2,000-acre blaze, working their way along the edges of the fire line and trying to hold the fire's large perimeter while allowing the blaze to burn away at its center, officials said.

Firefighters edged along the high-temperature crown fire focusing on keeping the blaze away from residences and safeguarding property and historical areas. More moderate winds allowed firefighters to strategize containment as they defensively stationed along its border, keeping the fire 50 yards away from the city's only high school.

"It's such a hot fire, and it's so intense, that for a while, you really couldn't get any firefighters in the area," said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department. "We're concentrating right now on trying to save homes and keep homes from burning. The fire's pretty much consuming trees and vegetation in the burnt area, and we'd rather it do that than consume homes."

As the winds died down, the smoke settled upon the fire area, making visibility terrible and preventing water drops, which were finally restarted midafternoon today.

-- Tami Abdollah

Reporter has good news

Linda Prien of Petaluma has a second home in the Mount Olympia area within the fire zone. She and her three boys, ages 16, 14 and 12, were at the beach today when the evacuation came. They were not allowed to return home.

Prien tried to sneak in to the fire zone with a Mountain Democrat reporter today but was asked by officials to get out of the car because she wasn't a journalist. As Prien sat on the corner waiting for the reporter to return, she was certain that her home had burned.

"I was sitting on the corner waiting for them to come get me, and I knew it was burned," she said. "I thought, 'It's time to start over.' "

But the reporter returned with good news: The house was fine. They had taken a photo of the house to show her. The bad news was that more than three-quarters of the houses in the neighborhood had burned.

"I just feel for my neighbors," Prien said. "We're surrounded by grass. Maybe that helped."

-- Lee Romney

Latest map of fire

Dropping water

Two of the nine choppers are up in the air about 2:30 p.m. this afternoon for the first time today after thick smoke kept them grounded this morning, said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado Sheriff's Department. The choppers are equipped with buckets to begin dropping water again but will also be doing observation to determine the current containment level and the fire line area, Atkinson said.

"What they're working on right now is the north end of the [fire] area, between the fire line and Camp Richardson," Atkinson said. "They're working the northern fire line right now, which goes basically due west from the high school along the edge of Gardner Mountain.... That's where the residential property is ... and other historical spots they're trying to keep from becoming endangered."

-- Tami Abdollah

A formidible enemy

Fire Capt. Brian Eagan of the California Department of Forestry stood on a steep ridgeline where his crew managed to save a neighborhood of million-dollar homes and pointed to the crest where a stand of trees was burned like matchsticks.

"You can see where this whole ridge was slicked off," he said, referencing a term used to describe so-called crown fires, where flames leap from tree to tree. "It's nothing more than standing logs now."

With crown fires, he said, the flames travel extremely fast with temperatures sometimes reaching as high as 1,500 degrees, he said. Unlike with grass fires, the heat can be sustained for as long as an hour, making it very diffcult for firefighters to battle, he said.

"When it gets into the trees, all we can do is back off," said Eagan, a 23 year veteran of the state fire department. "There's nothing we can do."

Several conditions helped prime the fire, including the dry weather, the winds and housing situated deep in the wilderness.

"You could have all the resources in the world and you couldn't have stopped it," Eagan said. "When you put homes into this kind of setting, where wind and fires occur -- not just here; it's statewide -- our focus goes from fighting fires to protecting homes."

Eagan also said homeowners still failed to realize the importance of clearing out brush and deadwood around their homes.

"Sometimes mother nature says, 'I'm sorry, but today I'm going to have it my way,' " he said.

-- Eric Bailey

Fire near school

The blaze got within about 50 yards of the city's only high school, South Tahoe High School, where dozens of firefighters and about eight engines were in defensive positions, said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado Sheriff's Department.

"They've got some backfires going to burn out the underbrush, so if the fire reaches the school again, it won't be so supercharged," Atkinson said. "They've probably got eight or 10 engines here around the school, so they're ready if something happens."

-- Tami Abdollah

Winds picking up

Jeff Nieves, the Eldorado County sheriff, said 173 structures had suffered total or major loss, nine suffered moderate loss and 17 suffered minor loss.

Officials are still investigating the cause but believe the fire was human-caused simply because there wasn't any lightning in the area. The fire is not burning in treetops anymore, and winds are calmer, both of which are very good developments.

But winds are now starting to pick up.

"The next few hours are going to be very telling for us. If it gets up in the treetops again, it will be a significant challenge for all our resources."

-- Lee Romney

Aircraft up -- but not dropping water

Although planes may have been up in the air for observation earlier today, none are currently up dropping water, said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.

"I don't believe they're actively dropping water; they're staged right now. But because no residences are currently threatened at the moment, they're [letting] the center burn, and they're saving their water resources for if the fire starts to break out of that containment line," Atkinson said.

-- Tami Abdollah

Understanding a 'crown fire'

From his office in Reno, Gary Zunino could see a brown column of smoke rising more than 50 miles to the southwest -- evidence of the kind of wildfire thought to be the most destructive to wilderness and the most frustrating to firefighters.

In the trade, they're known as "crown fires.'' They leap from treetop to treetop, dancing through a canopy well beyond the reach of ground crews. Even aerial drops are often ineffective; crown fires burn so hot that water and fire retardants can evaporate before they do much good.

"They're virtually impossible to stop until they run out of fuel,'' said Zunino, director of the University of Nevada's Fire Science Academy.

"The big challenge is to keep the fire from getting up there in the first place.''

The U.S. Forest Service describes the fire that has destroyed more than 220 structures in the South Lake Tahoe area as a crown fire. It's an especially treacherous fire to fight because it's in rugged terrain, produces cascading volumes of blinding smoke and is consuming tall, tinder-dry trees that have been weakened by drought or killed by insects.

Evergreens like the pines and firs in the area can be saturated with pitch and "literally explode,'' Zunino said.

-- Steve Chawkins

Scene at fire command post

The incident command post is at the base of Heavenly Mountain Ski resort. By midday Monday, some of the first California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Departments fire crews were relieved after about 16 hours on the fire lines.

"We have several hundred members of fire attack crews on the scene," said Ken Cesler, a correctional lieutenant. "It is hot, heavy, nasty work. It went on the lines at about 5 p.m. yesterday," he said, noting that most of the crews were still working the fire Monday afternoon.

James White, 41, is a Compton resident serving a burglary sentence at the Washington Ridge Fire Camp in Nevada County. He serves as a second-in-command on one of the fire crews supervised by California Department of Forestry Captains.

"We just did 15 hours. We worked through the night with head lamps and wearing shrouds."

White was part of a 15-member crew that did back-burning to prevent the fire from reaching the local high school.

"We were saving the school, the high school, we burned right behind the football field," White said. "We succeeded, the school was saved. The line was in the back and is all black and is all burned."

-- Tim Reiterman

10% contained

As of 1 p.m., the fire was about 10% contained, sitting more stationary and "digging in" -- burning within the rough perimeter firefighters have set up, said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department.

"It's around 10% or so, which is a step up from what it was," Atkinson said. "This morning is was only 5%, so I think any progress they make is good. A lot depends on whether the afternoon winds come; the afternoon is when the wind traditionally starts to kick up, so a lot depends on what happens with that."

-- Tami Abdollah

Assessing their loss

Brian and Katrina Gogue, who lived with their son, Dillon, 9, and daughter, Sierra, 7, on Coyote Ridge Road, said they were certain their home was lost.

They were at a friend's house early today and saw a television crew broadcasting from their neighborhood, where the fire had swept through the day before. "The whole neighborhood was just destroyed, down to the ground," Brian said. "We're 99.9% sure it's [the house] gone." Katrina, who works as a registered nurse at a local hospital, said a firefighter had called and left a message on her cellphone, saying, "I'm sorry about your home."

Brian, who works at a local Toyota dealership not far from where the fire started, said he was at work Sunday afternoon when he noticed ash falling on the new cars on the lot.

But he said he thought the wind was blowing in the direction away from his home. Still, he called his wife, who was spending the afternoon with their kids at a neighbor's pool, and told her that there might be a fire. Katrina rushed home. When she got there, "It was almost black from smoke," she said. "Ash was falling everywhere."

Katrina, who had been concerned about wildfires, already had prepared for an emergency evacuation and grabbed the couple's wedding album and other valuables. She said that about 10 minutes later police came by and told residents to turn their sprinklers on and leave the area. Despite their loss, the couple remained upbeat.

"It will all work out," Katrina said. "Worse things could happen," Brian said.

-- Eric Bailey

One family's ordeal

Steve Yingling and his family, who have lived in the area since 1990, spent the night at a Motel 6 after evacuating their neighborhood Sunday afternoon.

Yingling said he had been particularly worried about fires this year because it's been so dry. "We should have known something bad was going to happen," said Yingling, sports editor at the Tahoe Daily Tribune.

The family's house was one of six located on a canyon road near where the fire started. The family evacuated about 2 p.m. Sunday and were able to save their dog but couldn't find their cat, Yingling said.

"But the cat is pretty resourceful, having lived up there with the coyotes all these years," he said. Yingling said his sons, Connor, 14, and Jordan, 15, were taking it all pretty hard. "It's hitting them just like it's hitting us," he said. "Every 30 or 40 minutes you think of something else you've lost."

Connor said that when he and his brother first smelled smoke they rode their bikes down to the area where the fire was burning a couple of miles from their house. "I did something I shouldn't have done," he said. "But I saw how bad it was."

(continued below)

-- Eric Bailey

More on emergency declaration

With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Europe, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi signed a proclamation of a state of emergency today to trigger the flow of more federal dollars to help in the fight against the 2,000-acre blaze that had burned 165 homes south of Lake Tahoe. The fire started Sunday afternoon and was burning within two or three miles of the city of South Lake Tahoe, threatening 1,000 homes and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents and visitors.

Ken Pimlott, assistant deputy director with the California Department of Foresty and Fire Protection, called the fire perhaps the area's most devastating in the last 100 years.

"For me this is a very poignant situation," said Garamendi, who represented the Lake Tahoe area in the Legislature from 1974 to 1984. "This is a very difficult day for people in Tahoe and for those of us who know and love that place."

A dozen helicopters, 43 hand crews and 110 fire engines were being used to battle the blaze, said state Office of Emergency Services Director Henry Renteria, but thick smoke was hindering the use of firefighting planes. Schwarzenegger is being briefed "every hour on the hour," said governor's spokesman Aaron McLear, including a 23-minute call at 7:15 a.m. today.

-- Nancy Vogel

Searching for the cause

Officials do not yet know how the fire started. "It potentially could have been an illegal campfire, but I don't know that for a fact," said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department. "There's no evidence yet as to what caused it, and it could have been a number of things. There’s a fire warning every day in the summer in Tahoe, and it’s pretty much posted as high fire danger, especially in those areas, because it’s very thickly wooded."

-- Tami Adbollah

'It is very, very depressing'

State Assemblyman Ted Gaines (R-Roseville), who represents the district that includes South Lake Tahoe, said he was returning from a NASCAR race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma when he learned about the fire. He said he rushed home and drafted a letter requesting that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declare a state of emergency in the Tahoe area. Gaines said the governor called him from Europe, where he is traveling, and "told me he'd do all he could. He said, 'We'll be doing all we can, and I'm very concerned about the loss of property and happy that there's no loss of life.' " Gaines said the governor told him he would tour the fire-damaged area Wednesday.

Gaines was given a tour this morning of the Tahoe Paradise neighborhood. "It is very, very depressing," he said. "It's scorched earth. Like a war zone." He said he saw a Chevrolet truck with aluminum wheels that had melted into a puddle. But a few things survived the flames. At one house, where only a chimney was left standing, the landscaping remained unscathed, Gaines said. He also saw an intact for-sale sign outside a house that had been consumed by the fire.

-- Tim Reiterman

Anatomy of a firefight

Today is turning out to be a much better day for firefighters than Sunday. With less wind, there is less smoke, and that allows a much more effective firefight.

"There were winds yesterday; it was sort of an explosive start, from my understanding.... Once the fire started hitting the timber, it really started to explode. With the external wind blowing yesterday, it really made it dangerous," said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department.

"Today, fortunately, we haven't had the [external] winds, so we've had a chance for the firefighters to have a chance to map it [the fire] and know where to fight it from. But that changes from moment to moment. So the plan they have right now might not be good in five minutes. So they have to be flexible. Right now they’re trying to isolate it so it doesn’t escape from the boundaries they have right now."

One major problem with battling the blaze Sunday was heavy smoke. "Smoke cuts visibility, and we had almost zero visibility with the smoke," Atkinson said. "It makes it difficult not only for people in the basin but also for the firefighters, who can't see. The wind moves the smoke around, cuts visibility and makes it much more difficult to fight it." People have reported ash falling all over South Lake Tahoe, and many residents who have not yet evacuated are watering down their homes and roofs and leaving sprinklers on in hopes of preventing embers from igniting.

-- Tami Abdollah

Air assault begins

With less wind and smoke, firefighters were able to use more air support today -- something they could not do Sunday because of heavy smoke. About 700 firefighters have responded from California and Nevada, as well as all over the Western United States, including Oregon and Washington.

"They're doing airdrops with water from aircrafts," said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department. "It's such a hot fire, and it was so intense for a while, you really couldn't get any firefighters in the area. They're concentrating right now on trying to save homes and keep homes from burning. The fire's pretty much consuming trees and vegetation in the burnt area. We’re lucky right now in that the winds are not moving, so it’s given the firefighters the chance to see if they can get the upper hand on it. But it not has been brought under control as of yet."

-- Tami Abdollah

State of emergency

Lt. Gov. John Garamendi declared a state of emergency in the Lake Tahoe area. He spoke at a news conference in Sacramento. (The governor is on a trip in Europe.)

A heavy toll

So far, there is no monetary estimate on the destroyed structures, but the figure may be quite high. "I know most of the houses in that area are in excess of $600,000, so it could certainly get way up there," said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department. "There are a lot of million-dollar homes in that area. In the area there is a large proprtion of people who are there full time, and there are a large number of vacation houses that are seasonally occupied."

The Gardner Mountain area to the north of the fire is on standby for evacuation because of the many homes in the area. "We haven't evacuated that," Atkinson said. "There's no immediate plans, but we're watching the fire, and if it becomes necessary to evacuate people we will do what's necessary."

-- Tami Abdollah

Winds calmer; fire slows

Officials said the winds -- which were such a problem Sunday -- seem to be cooperating today. That has slowed the fire's march.

"Basically [the fire] is just crawling out; its arms move out in different directions. But it's like a big oval band with Tahoe Mountain at the center, and it's hit some of the residential areas to the east of Tahoe Mountain and it's moving south," said Sgt. Don Atkinson of El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.

"Right now the fire is sitting down; it hasn't moved in any direction," Atkinson said. "It's sitting because there's no winds. We're trying to get a perimeter around it, but it's hard because that's almost 2,000 acres. [It's heading south,] at least for the moment, but that can change; right now that seems to be where it's creeping, and in a way it's fortunate, because there's no homes in that area. You've got a pretty large band of forest, and there is a section of residential track up that direction, but you've got some forest land in between as a buffer."

-- Tami Abdollah

5% contained

The fire is currently 5% contained, concentred in Tahoe Mountain, a large residential area just south of the city of South Lake Tahoe. It is near the town of Fallen Leaf, just east of it, and is somewhat still --"creeping" south, said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.

"Basically it's just crawling out; its arms move out in different directions," he said. "But it's like a big oval band with Tahoe Mountain at the center, and it's hit some of the residential areas to the east of Tahoe Mountain and it's moving south," Atkinson said.

-- Tami Abdollah

'Crown fire' hurts control efforts

Firefighters have said heavy smoke has hurt their efforts to use water-dropping aircraft on the Tahoe fire. Flames leaping from treetop to treetop cause "crown fires," widely acknowledged as the most dangerous and destructive of wildland fires. Even aerial drops can be relatively ineffective because such fires burn so hot that water is vaporized before it can do any good, said Gary Zunino, director of the Fire Science Academy at the University of Nevada in Reno.

-- Steve Chawkins

In the fire's path

Ashley McGehee's house is in the Tahoe Paradise area. She lives one block south of where officials believe the fire started. McGehee, 18, said her family was told to get out of the house about 4 p.m. Sunday. She got a call from her mom Sunday afternoon while she was working at a Jamba Juice, a 35-minute drive away in Stateline, Nev.

"I looked outside and someone said it was raining soot, and one of the boys told me it’s by Truckee, and I thought, 'Oh, that’s far,' and then someone told me it was by North Truckee and I was like, 'That’s right over my home,' " McGehee said. "By the time I drove up there, they were kicking everyone out. My parents did salvage everything except the furniture.

"My parents were hiking actually where the fire started, and they saw it. Neither of them had their cellphones so they decided to run and they ran to the car and drove home. They noticed it was by our house, a street away.

"When they saw it, it was just a little thing," McGehee said. "What everyone’s thinking is, since there was no lightning, is that some kids were up there the night before and had a bonfire. It was man-made. There’s nothing else that could have started it; it was a beautiful day.

"It's nothing I’ve ever seen before. It was raining soot, everyone kept running inside, saying something’s happening. I just took off my apron, and my mom [called and] said, 'Hurry, we have to evacuate.' I drove as fast as I could, but I didn’t make it in time."

McGehee's family filled up her father's Ford F-250 truck, her mother's Ford Explorer and her brother's Subaru with their family photos, laptops, scrapbooks, family heirlooms and other irreplaceable items, leaving nearly all their clothing except a few pair of pants. Today, McGehee had only her Jamba Juice T-shirt and a pair of jeans she had been wearing at work. She said her family went around to neighbors' houses helping them. At one house their neighbors told them to kick in windows and grab whatever they could; they drove two cars to safety.

-- Tami Abdollah

Protecting the animals

As executive director of Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, Cheryl Millham knows that the next few days will be busy. She says her organization has 25 to 30 volunteers poised to go in as soon as it's safe to locate and assist wounded animals. "We're antsy, wanting to get in and help, but until the firefighters say it's safe, there's just nothing we can do."

In past fires, her group has nursed bobcats and deer with burned feet. Millham also expects a lot of calls from people reporting nuisance animals, because "all the animals that got out will be condensed in a smaller area." Displaced animals are often confused and uncertain where to find food. "Out on the other side of our fence line yesterday there was a bear looking totally confused," she said. "Traffic on the road was bumper to bumper, there was smoke everywhere and planes overhead, and he just had nowhere to go."

If bears or coyotes enter houses or structures or seem reluctant to leave an inhabited property, her group helps residents try to scare the animals off. "We explain to people, 'Don't worry, [they're] not going to eat you,' " Millham said. "And we tell them not to feed them. The animals have to establish new territories, and they'll have to find their own food. If people feed them, it changes their behavior and will keep them from establishing new patterns.

"People panic when a bear comes into their yards, but those bears are having a hard time," she said. Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care is located three miles from the fire, which so far is burning in the other direction. But if the winds change, Millham said, "we've got people ready with horse trailers to move our animals."

-- Sue Horton

Tahoe blaze: 240 structures lost

As of 8 a.m., the South Lake Tahoe fire had scorched more than 2,000 acres and destroyed at least 240 structures, said Greg Renick, spokesman for the governor's Office of Emergency Services. The fire was 0% contained, he said. There were no injuries reported. Hundreds of people were evacuated from the area and about 2,000 people lost their power, while an additional 1,400 were without gas, Renick said. Favorable weather conditions helped keep the fire from spreading early today, with humidity at 70% and 10-mph winds out of the east, shifting in a northwest directon. Temperatures were expected to range from a low of 71 degrees to a high of 81.

-- Carlos Lozano