Tahoe counts its losses

Firefighters took advantage of calming winds to gain ground Monday against a 4-square-mile wildfire southwest of Lake Tahoe, saving a high school and holding destruction to about 250 homes, sheds and other buildings.

By nightfall, the fire was about 40% contained, authorities said, and officials were trying to determine whether it would be safe to allow some evacuees to return to their homes today. State officials said they expected complete containment by Thursday.

Evacuations, which totaled about 1,000 people, were halted, and no injuries were reported. Meteorologists expected the wind to drop to an almost dead calm overnight. In a boon to firefighters, the humidity was expected to rise as high as 75%.

Authorities were almost certain that no structures had burned Monday, said Sgt. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department. “The fire’s pretty much consuming trees and vegetation,” he said. “We’d rather it do that than consume homes.”

The cause of the blaze remained under investigation, said Jackie Faike, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service. No lightning had been reported.

“It potentially could have been an illegal campfire,” Atkinson said. “But I don’t know that for a fact. There’s no evidence yet as to what caused it.”

There was no firm estimate of financial loss. “I know most of the houses in the [burned] area are in excess of $600,000,” Atkinson said. “There are a lot of $1-million homes in that area.”

Residents waited nervously to learn whether their houses were still standing.

Katrina Gogue, a registered nurse at a local hospital who lost her home, said a firefighter left a message on her cellphone.

“I’m sorry,” the message said.

Linda Prien, a resident of Petaluma, Calif., learned that her vacation home had been spared. A reporter showed her a photo to prove it.

“We’re surrounded by grass,” Prien said. “Maybe that helped.”

The fire, which broke out Sunday afternoon, was one of the most destructive in memory at this tree-covered area southwest of Lake Tahoe, which is famous for its crystal-clear water.

Now, some of the lake’s surface was awash in fallen ashes. Fire officials had predicted a particularly perilous summer because of low rainfall. Ken Pimlott, an assistant deputy director of the state forestry department, called the fire perhaps the most devastating in the area in the last 100 years.

With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Europe, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi signed an emergency declaration to provide state funds to fight the fire and repair damage.

“It’s been a good day,” Garamendi said. In a statement, Schwarzenegger praised the firefighters as “true heroes.”

An intense focus of their battle was on the outskirts of South Lake Tahoe at South Tahoe High School, where flames licked to within 50 yards. Dozens of firefighters and eight engines held a defensive position around the school, Atkinson said.

More than 700 firefighters, at least a dozen planes and helicopters and about 110 fire engines joined the battle against the blaze, officially known as the Angora fire, said Henry Renteria, director of the state Office of Emergency Services.

He said thick smoke made it hard to use planes to water-bomb the flames. Wind slowed from 35-mph gusts Sunday to 12 mph, allowing smoke to settle over the aircraft in a blinding pall. After the smoke lifted, air tanker and helicopter crews went to work.

They found that the drop in wind speed also had helped keep the fire out of treetops. Flames crowning at treetops are extremely hard to fight.

In such “crown fires” like the wind-whipped blaze that had turned the forest into charred matchsticks Sunday, temperatures can reach 1,500 degrees, said Brian Eagan, a state Department of Forestry captain.

The heat is so intense, fire retardants evaporate before they can do much good, Egan said. As the flames leap from tree to tree, “all we can do is back off.”

During its crowning phase, the fire blackened a 2,500-acre, dagger-shaped area between U.S. Highway 50 on the east and Fallen Leaf Lake, a smaller body of water southwest of Lake Tahoe. The area extended from a few miles south of Lake Tahoe to just above Echo Lake, which is even smaller.

Within the dagger, little was left standing.

Of the 250 structures that were burned, the El Dorado Sheriff’s Department said, 199 were homes. Deputies counted at least 173 that had suffered total or major losses, nine with moderate loss and 17 with lesser damage.

The Sacramento Sierra chapter of the Red Cross provided lodging for 13 people, who stayed overnight at an area community recreation center, and another 150 who stayed at area hotels and motels.

Assemblyman Ted Gaines (R-Roseville), whose district includes South Lake Tahoe, described the burned area as scorched earth. He said he saw a house with only one chimney left standing but with its landscaped yard unscathed.

The aluminum wheels on a Chevrolet truck were melted into a puddle, Gaines said, and a house was burned to the ground with a for-sale sign still standing.

The fire disoriented wild animals.

“Out on the other side of our fence line yesterday, there was a bear looking totally confused,” said Cheryl Millham, executive director of Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care. “Traffic on the road was bumper to bumper. There was smoke everywhere and planes overhead.

“He just had nowhere to go.”

Faike, the Forest Service spokeswoman, said the fire was believed to have started in an area called Seneca Pond, off North Upper Truckee Road near Mt. Rainer Drive, “in an area inaccessible by vehicle.”

Atkinson said the point of origin might have been further north.

He cited a ridgeline in the Angora Lakes area that runs between Tahoe Mountain and Fallen Leaf Lake.

Longtime residents were frightened at first, then deeply saddened by the damage.

Robert and Delicia Spees, daughter Stephanie and son Robert Jr. could not wait for permission to see what had become of their home. Knowing that officers would stop them at checkpoints along their road, they slogged through a muddy meadow to take a look.

“Oh my God,” Stephanie said. “The house is gone.”

It had been reduced to a smoldering pile of charred wood and twisted metal. Only the cinderblock chimney still stood. A layer of white ash covered everything.

Stephanie threw her hands into the air. Her brother put an arm around her.

Beside them, their parents walked hand in hand. Delicia Spees wept. “Thirty years,” she said. “And it’s all gone.”

Jerry Martin, a bartender at the Horizon Casino Resort in Stateline, Nev., about a 35-minute drive away, said a sheriff’s car pulled up to his house in the fire zone and a deputy told his wife that she had to leave.

She took her Bible, in the family since 1886, photos, T-shirts and a pair of jeans. The Martins spent the night with friends. They e-mailed their son, a 24-year-old Marine in Fallouja, Iraq, and told him not to worry.

Their son called after seeing the e-mail, and they commiserated on the phone.

At Gardner Mountain, Jule Abner, 39, had asked her sons to prepare for evacuation by packing the family SUV. Her 16-year-old loaded in a drive shaft he was using to restore a 1968 Cadillac, she said, and his 18-year-old brother filled most of the rest of the space with paintings and a mannequin he recently bought in San Francisco.

“I said, ‘Wait, did you pack any clothes?’ ” Their mother said she unpacked the vehicle and repacked it with essentials.

As it turned out, firefighters managed to keep the flames at bay, and the family was not evacuated. Abner made a sign for her frontyard.

“Thank You Firefighters!” it said.

Steve Yingling and his family, residents since 1990, spent Sunday night at a Motel 6. The weather had been so dry, he said, “we should have known something bad was going to happen.”

Yingling, sports editor at the Tahoe Daily Tribune, said his family’s house was one of six on a canyon road near where the fire started. They evacuated about 2 p.m. Sunday and were able to save their dog. They 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 the loss 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.”

When Connor and his brother first smelled smoke, they rode their bicycles toward the flames, about two miles from their house. It was not a safe thing to do, Connor said, “but I saw how bad it was.”

He and his brother rode home as fast as they could. A few minutes later, police went through their neighborhood telling everyone to evacuate.

The family quickly packed up its valuables. Connor said he grabbed his baseball and basketball cards but was unable to retrieve other sports memorabilia, including his jerseys.

He said he also lost his eighth-grade graduation plaque.

“It’s going to be tough,” he said. He began to cry. “I had no idea it [the fire] was going to be so effective.... “

At midday Monday, officials said the Yingling home had been destroyed.

eric.bailey@latimes.com

lee.romney@latimes.com

tami.abdollah@latimes.com

Times staff writers Steve Chawkins, Tim Reiterman, Joel Rubin, Stuart Silverstein, and Francisco Vara-Orta contributed to this report.