By John Simerman
Inside Bay Area
Copyright 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
All Rights Reserved
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — “My house is gone, Mike. There’s the chimney. Oh, God.”
The two childhood friends rolled up Mule Deer Circle and took a right on Elk Point Drive. They passed the smoking embers of stumps and the charred remains of power poles, melted and gutted cars, frayed and fallen power lines, ash on the ground and in the air.
Pat La Vallee lost his wife three years ago. His friend, Mike Elliott, lost his last year. And now this.
A day after La Vallee looked up from the raft in his little pool to see a “tornado fire cloud” in the distance and then grabbed his three cats, his Fender guitar and his gem-studded cross necklace, he managed to slide past police barricades Monday morning to view what he hoped he never would.
“It was a beautiful, quaint Tahoe home. Now it’s ashes and a chimney,” said La Vallee, 49, who lost a different Tahoe house to an electrical fire in 1994. “This is just so horrific.”
His was one of 173 houses with total or major destruction from a blaze that had scorched more than 2,500 pine-spiked acres and forced about 1,000 residents to evacuate their homes, officials said.
That was the same toll that fire officials counted early Monday, as more than 500 firefighters staved off furtherdamage from the air and ground, aided by a near-perfect turn from fierce winds to calm, relatively cool air. The blaze remained within largely the same area it had reached early Monday morning.
Officials judged it 40 percent contained late Monday. Firefighters also were buoyed by a forecast for stagnant winds overnight and more calm today, although they warned that stiffer winds were expected Wednesday and Thursday.
“The weather’s cooperating with us. We’re not fighting the wind. It was much better,” said Yvonne Jones, spokeswoman for the federal firefighting team. “There are homes that are still threatened.”
In all, the Angora fire has damaged more than 220 structures, mostly in the area southwest of town. The cause remained under investigation. Because there was no lightning, officials said they believe it was caused by humans.
Fire crews came from throughout much of Northern California, including some from the East Bay. One strike team of 21 firefighters and five engines from Alameda, Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties left at 3:10 p.m. Monday for the Lake Tahoe area.
A thick, jaundiced fog of acrid smoke filled the morning air and obscured much of the valley, keeping fire suppressing helicopters at bay until after noon. Witnesses described an intense, howling fire that rose in swirling spires up through the crowns of the pines on Sunday as it charted a path of home destruction unlike this area has ever seen.
“When you have a crown fire,” said Jones, “you can’t fight it.”
Firefighters battled the blaze head-on from the north on Monday, lighting backburns at the edge of South Tahoe High School that helped beat back the spreading fire.
Some residents lauded the fire crews for saving many more homes.
“It was coming our direction. There was nothing stopping it. Then you heard these chain saws like they were a pack of dirt bikes,” said Bob Aaron, who lives three blocks from a fireline that held Monday. “They chased it. I think it saved the whole neighborhood.”
In some areas where charred hillsides met fortunate homes across the fireline, several fire engines lined single blocks. Officials said they learned a valuable lesson from the 1991 Oakland Hills fire.
“You can’t have one engine protecting five houses,” said CalFire Capt. Tom Fischer of Martinez, who was a Contra Costa firefighter in Lafayette back then. “They’ve learned it’s pretty much one engine, one house.”
Joe Lichtenstein of Pleasant Hill said he saw smoke plumes billowing into the air on Sunday afternoon, not far from where he was lazing away the weekend in his second home in Meyers.
“It looked like a nuclear explosion,” he said. “It was pretty darn ominous, with the dark clouds puffing up the street.”
Lichtenstein packed up his four-bedroom vacation house and sped away in his Mercedes at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, just before mandatory evacuations forced his neighbors from their homes.
On Monday he scoured the list of damaged houses, relieved to find Mohawk Drive where he lives off the list.
“I’m hoping we’re going to be OK,” he said. “I feel bad for all the people who lost their homes.”
Toni Cole of San Ramon sat on pins and needles all Monday, worried that flames had destroyed her beloved getaway home in Meyers, where hundreds of homes were evacuated.
“We have everything up there,” Cole said.
All 1,600 square feet of the house are stuffed with mementos, pictures and toys -- her daughters’ bicycles, Barbie play kitchen and toy Jeep.
Cole and her husband bought the three-bedroom vacation home three years ago and spend nearly every weekend at the house.
The family spent the entire summer there last year, often visiting what are now the charred shores of Fallen Leaf Lake, just west of the blaze.
Cole wonders if the house will still be standing on the Fourth of July.
“We planned on going this weekend,” Cole said. “Now we just have to put everything on hold.”
Camp Shelley, owned by the Livermore Recreation and Park District, is a few miles from the Monday night fireline. Officials have not asked the park district to evacuate, said park board member Scott Kamena.
“Right now, the wind is blowing away from Camp Shelley,” Kamena said Monday night. “We’re optimistic they will not have to evacuate and that campers will be able to have an enjoyable experience.”
Several local residents aired bitterness over what they called a failure over many years to implement a forest-thinning strategy, and what they called the brutal result: an abundance of dry fuel for the fire.
Jordan Morganstern, a local Web TV producer, blamed environmental groups.
“They wanted to keep the trees, and this is what they got,” he said.
Mary Jo Shepherd of Lafayette, who owns a six-bedroom house on the western shore away from the flames, said she and her husband cleared dry brush over Memorial Day weekend, sweeping their dry pine needles into dumpsters. But not everyone follows the same precautions, she said.
“When you get a wind, there’s not much you can do,” Shepherd said. “You just have to get out.”
Earlier Monday, the acrid stench of smoke filled the air as homeowners milled around security checkpoints and staging areas, trying to get in to check on their homes.
Officials were issuing lists of homes that have been destroyed, and a Web site, http://www.edso.org , where homeowners can learn about the fate of their houses.
Many residents watched news reports helplessly, unable to return to see whether their homes remained. Officials said it could be two days before they would be allowed in, although some in less threatened areas may be allowed back in today. For many, it will be an anxious wait for a solemn view.
“We don’t know yet, so there’s still the feeling of hope,” said Linda Prien of Petaluma, who came up Sunday with her three sons and a friend, dropped their things off at the house and went to the beach. They never made it back to the house.
On Monday, they were searching at an airport staging area for a list of destroyed homes.
“We’re just trying to find out if our house still stands.”
A drive down Mt. Olympia Circle revealed the peculiar nature of wildfire. Prien’s two-story, wood-frame house and yard remained, untouched by the blaze. All around it lay burned out lots.