Today opens with real concern about the weather. Firefighters have been warned to expect strong, southwesterly winds with gusts reaching 35 mph between 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. this afternoon.
These stiffer winds have the dangerous possibility of throwing the fire into more of our South Lake Tahoe neighborhoods, one of which is our most affluent. If the fire is not held back successfully by firefighters, the winds today poses risk for the following neighborhoods: Gardner Mountain, Tallac Village, The Tahoe Keys, the Camp Richardson area and possibly more. These winds also will bring increased risk to the firefighters themselves.
Obviously, weather conditions are not good. The wind is expected to decrease by the evening and become relatively calm. Today is a real test.
At present, there are approximately 2,000 firefighters fighting the wild fire. There are 11 or so helicopters, what looks like hundreds of fire engines, 54 hand crews, 14 water tenders, countless support vehicles and bulldozers clearing out firebreaks
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This is what all of us have in front of us today. Naturally, we are all poised, alert, hunkered down. We’re watching out homes, thinking about what we’ll take if we have to leave in a hurry. We’re the lucky ones. Some 2,000 people have already had to go.
We’re watching all the news and checking online constantly for updates and any new developments. The Tahoe Daily Tribune is doing an excellent job with continuing breaking news coverage. All of the news media is here. The news, and rumor, moves quickly and proportionate to the speed of the fire. Mostly yesterday this was rather slow, but an unexpected afternoon wind burst blew the fire across a break. That came with new of immediate, mandatory evacuations, some of which were accurate, and others thankfully rumor.
We’re finding the best news at the Tahoe Daily Tribune online, and KMTN television, a local station of the Resort Sports Network, which mostly features content about Lake Tahoe recreation and sports activities.
Our intention was to post today about our community coming together through this disaster. We’re thinking we’ll write about this tomorrow now... as we are very much focused on the wind today. We’re still thinking it would be wonderful if collectively we could all conjure up an effective rain dance.
Pertaining to the South Lake Tahoe real estate business, which is of such minimal priority to even consider when both homeowners and firefighters are at such risk, it is unfortunate that a local real estate agent was quoted in the newspaper that the fire “could mean good business for the real estate market.” We feel that is an exceptionally inappropriate comment at such a time.
Photos here are from our friend Peter Tye.
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