Early morning wildland fire near Stateline casinos
Updated: Sept. 13 11:09am.
Firefighters quickly doused a half-acre fire this morning near the Heavenly gondola in South Lake Tahoe.
This area and right behind the Stateline casinos have always been popular illegal camping sites for homeless people. Although fire officials have not determined the exact cause of the blaze, speculation this morning was that the fire could have originated at a homeless camp.
Firefighters extinguish a blaze near the Heavenly gondola Sept. 13. Photo/Taylor Flynn/Tahoe Mountain News
Crews from the U.S. Forest Service, South Lake Tahoe, Lake Valley and CalFire responded to the fire that was reported at 5:47am. It was contained by 7:30am.
“They jumped on it right away. We are fortunate,” said Lisa Herron, Forest Service spokeswoman.
This was the second fire in 12 hours the four agencies responded to.
The first was Sept. 12 at 5:30pm, about a half mile off Al Tahoe Boulevard in the Springmeyer Land Conservancy area. The fire was human caused and burned a 30 foot by 30 foot area of grass and duff.
The Sept. 13 fire was reported by a pilot taking off from Lake Tahoe Airport as being by the gondola tower 6 or 7 at Heavenly Mountain Resort.
“Significant on this fire, was the fire’s activity and the location on the slope. This fire burned with relatively intensity due to the fire’s location adjacent to steep slopes with heavy continuous fuels like trees, dead and alive, as well as, brush,” South Tahoe Division Chief Marty Scheuerman said in a press release. “The primary reasons firefighters were able to contain this fire to just a half acre was the quick aggressive response and the temperatures were in the low 30s and relative humidity was in the 60 percent range.”
Both Fires were human caused and under investigation.
— Compiled by Kathryn Reed
I’m thinking they need to clear these guys out of there before something bad happens, we’ve been lucky too many times.
Clear them out,you got be kidding, now it’s going to be a packed camp site legal or not but the results will be the same,Fire.
“Mark my words”, that new park will in the end result in one South shores future fires that will scare the land more than the first Heavenly Smoke out unscreen windows ever did.
People are just not careful with fire,the Gondola shuts down many times a year from wind,duh,they just put in fire rings that do nothing to stop what going to happen there.
It’s a natural wind tunnel and it’s going to take the flame all the way to the top,while we all watch helpless ,it’s just a matter of time.
Once Van Sickle park opens I would expect that the dirtbaggers (no disrespect intended, that’s just what we called these folks when I was growing up on Maui) will find somewhere else to hang. The flip side of this coin is that the problem will just be relocated.