Gusty Winds Hamper Tahoe Wildfire Efforts
Firefighters were warned Wednesday that strong afternoon wind could again stoke the turbulent wildfire near Lake Tahoe and would threaten their safety, a day after a flare-up forced thousands of residents to flee.
At the northern edge of the fire zone, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker, crews used an arsenal of tools, hoping to starve the beast — knocking down trees, clearing out anything the fire could consume, and cooling down the area that erupted in flames late Tuesday and still smolders.
Hundreds of firefighters were battling the flames near the small town of Meyers and around the densely populated neighborhoods of the city of South Lake Tahoe.
"The strategy is to employ lots of fire engines (in South Lake Tahoe), scattered through these neighborhoods, so that if this acts up, we'll have enough fire engines out here to put out the fires that start breaking out on people's yards and on their roofs," said Rich Hawkins, a Forest Service fire commander.
"The worst-case scenario is the fire would break out in multiple locations," he said. "The biggest problem is just that there are so many homes in a combustible environment."
That surge briefly trapped two firefighters and forced the evacuation of a 300-home subdivision.
With stiffer gusts predicted, officials acknowledged that more homes, including some in the most affluent waterfront neighborhoods, could be threatened. Several officials at the briefing said the wind could also present a danger to firefighters themselves.
"It'll remain bone dry in the Lake Tahoe area," says CBS News meteorologist George Cullen. "The only chance of them seeing any rain won't be until Friday and even that is a bit of a long shot right now."
Everything was going fine until the winds picked up, and sent the back-burn in the opposite direction, toward a 300-home subdivision, reports . About 2,000 residents had to flee.
Wind was expected to reach speeds up to 35 mph, National Weather Service forecaster Jim Wallmann said.
"It really is hard to predict what these winds are going to do," said Kelly Martin, a fire behavior analyst who addressed hundreds of firefighters from across the state at a pre-dawn briefing Wednesday.
"They said 'We think we have it contained and everything's fine.' In fact, we started kind of relaxing. We thought, 'well, we're OK,' so we were surprised when we saw the thing jump," resident Jim Baitge told Kaufman. "It took off really fast."
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons planned to visit the area Wednesday.
At one point Tuesday, authorities said the danger to homes had diminished as the wind abated, but by Tuesday evening the blaze that started Sunday had charred more than 3,000 acres — about 4.7 square miles — and was only 44 percent contained, fire officials said.
Containment is not expected before next Tuesday, said Rich Hawkins, a Forest Service fire commander.
Tuesday's flare-up occurred in an area where firefighters had set a backfire to keep the main blaze from reaching more houses. The gust blew embers across the fire line and started new spot fires, Hawkins said.
The blaze moved so quickly that two firefighters were forced to deploy their emergency shelters. They were missing for nearly an hour, but walked away uninjured, Hawkins said.
Without the tent-like shelters, the men would have died, Hawkins said.
About 2,000 people evacuated, according to South Lake Tahoe Police Lt. Martin Hale.
Investigators have located the fire's point of origin, near the popular Seneca Pond recreation area, and are close to identifying its cause, Forest Service spokeswoman Beth Brady said. Authorities have said they believe it was caused by human activity, but there was no indication it was intentional.
The forest is so dry that a discarded cigarette butt or match could easily have ignited the fire, Brady said. The area was also dotted with the remnants of illegal campfires, she said.
Many homeowners got their first look at the wildfire's destruction Tuesday, finding some houses reduced to charred ruins and others largely unscathed, except for the odor of smoke and a blanket of ash.
Concerned about looting, dozens of sheriff's deputies and California Highway Patrol officers patrolled the burned neighborhoods, and only people who lived in the area were allowed in.
"I didn't save hardly anything in the house," said retired firefighter John Hartzell, who lost his home of 20 years. Along with his wife, adult son and daughter, he sorted through the rubble in search of any mementos.
"I got out with the clothes on my back, my fire coat and my helmet," he said.
Elsewhere, arson has been blamed for a wildfire in western South Dakota that has blacked about 3.5 square miles in Custer State Park, said Joe Lowe, state wildland fire coordinator. The blaze was about two-thirds contained late Tuesday.
Custer State Park remained open but a campground and a lodge had been evacuated, disrupting the vacation plans of hundreds of visitors.