By Ryan Sabalow, Dale Kasler And Ellen Garrison, Sacramento Bee

The sun was shining, the temperatures were pleasant and, by all rights, the tasting room at Buena Vista Winery should have been packed Sunday.

Instead, California’s oldest winery was surrounded by a phalanx of exhausted, soot-covered firefighters. Wine barrels were dusted in ash, and the fountain in front of the 19th-century stone-and-mortar building was filled with muddy gray water. A nearby oak tree still smoldered, and the hillside was charred to within 20 feet of the winery.

“Doesn’t get much closer,” said Scott Fraser, a weary battalion chief from a Lake Tahoe-area strike team.

After a week of misery and death, Northern California’s devastating wildfires showed signs of easing off Sunday.

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