The Reno-Tahoe Senior Summer Games is Aug. 4-10.

The games are dedicated to promoting and implementing fitness programs and activities for people 50 and older. Registration deadline for the pickleball bracket is July 25 at 5pm. Registration for all other games will remain open until Aug. 4.

Events include archery, table tennis, horseshoes, basketball, badminton, billiards, fishing, darts, golf, and swimming.

To register, or for more information, go online, call 775.657.4602, or email mahanb@reno.gov.

Dedication of the Echo Summit 1968 track and field Olympic training site as a historical place:

The Deerfield Lodge and hotel guests’ vehicles were destroyed July 23 by fire. Photo/Susan Wood

By Kathryn Reed

Two people were injured when the Deerfield Lodge in South Lake Tahoe went up in flames Wednesday night.

The fire that swept through the Ski Run Boulevard two-story hotel displaced all of the guests. Thirty-five people were taken to Lakeside Inn for the evening and are expected to return today.

The back building that had six rooms was completely destroyed, while the front is intact and does not have smoke damage.

South Lake Tahoe Fire Chief Jeff Meston estimated the damage at between $2 million and $2.5 million.

Also gone are four guest vehicles and two cars parked on Spruce Avenue, about 25 feet away from the hotel.

The people who were injured jumped from the second story balcony. Meston told Lake Tahoe News they were taken to Barton Memorial Hospital with significant injuries, but did not have further details.

Firefighters on July 24 assess the damage to Deerfield Lodge and investigate the cause. Photo/Susan Wood

The fire started at 11:45pm July 23 and was brought under control at 2:35am. Assisting South Lake Tahoe were firefighters from Tahoe Douglas and Lake Valley, along with an engine from CalFire. The cause is under investigation.

Tahoe Douglas’ ladder truck was used because South Lake Tahoe’s new one is still not in service because it was damaged when the manufacturer had someone drive it from Louisiana to Tahoe in four-wheel drive.

Susie Horst, who lives across the street on Spruce Avenue, had her windows knocked out from the fire. She had to evacuate.

Horst told Lake Tahoe News it was like she was having a nightmare because she could hear all of these people screaming.

A guest woke up Jerry Birdwell, owner of the Black Bear Inn located next door to the Deerfield, to tell him about the fire.

A truck was spraying water from the side street next to the Black Bear across the bed and breakfast’s property to the Deerfield.

“I looked and my god it was blazing,” Birdwell told Lake Tahoe News. “They protected our property. The manner in which the firefighters worked, the police worked and when [City Manager] Nancy [Kerry] got on scene and handled the situation with Deerfield guests … it was absolutely professional.”

It was Kerry who arranged for a BlueGo bus to take the people to Lakeside Inn and was calling all over town before she was able to secure rooms for the night at the Stateline casino-hotel.

The city is coordinating relief efforts for guests – adults and teenagers – who lost everything. Anyone who can assist with clothing, lodging or other amenities should call 530.542.6016.

The Deerfield Lodge goes up in flames. Photo/Denis Bellocq

The Red Cross is not much help in situations like this because their focus is on people who live in a town, not tourists.

The Deerfield used to be the Dream Inn until Eric and Robin Eichenfield bought it in May 2006 for $800,000 and then invested more than $1 million to turn it into an upscale boutique hotel. New owners took over a year ago this month. No one was answering the phone this morning at the Deerfield.

This was the third South Lake Tahoe hotel fire in a last few weeks. On July 20 the Highland Inn was affected by the fire at Mountain Mike’s T-shirt shop. Then there was a small fire at Lake Shore Lodge that started in a dryer.

Susan Wood contributed to this story.

By Kathryn Reed

STATELINE – With an arsonist on the loose on the South Shore setting brush fires, Simmie is even more important.

Simmie is Lake Valley Fire Protection District’s arson dog. She was at the Soroptimist International South Lake Tahoe lunch on Wednesday at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe with her handler Gareth Harris.

Harris, fire chief for Lake Valley, has been working with Simmie for a couple years. She came to the department via a donation from a nonprofit. And she is the only arson dog that services Northern Nevada.

Firefighters on June 18 hike to a blaze in Stateline that was intentionally set. Photo/Carol Faccinetti

“There is no doubt it was started with an accelerant,” Harris said of one of the Stateline area fires.

Simmie is trained to sniff out hydrocarbons. Samples are then sent to a lab in Sacramento for confirmation.

Multiple agencies are working to track down the person or people setting the local fires, with a task force convening on Monday.

While the basin has not had many arsons, three people were arrested earlier this month in connection with starting a fire at an Incline Village restaurant, the January house fire in South Lake Tahoe was the work of an arsonist who has not been caught, and in October 2012 a South Lake Tahoe man was arrested on charges of arson at a residence. And of course there is the Angora Fire of 2007 that, while not deemed intentional, was started by someone not extinguishing an illegal campfire.

According to the South Lake Tahoe Fire Department, arson killed more than 800 people in 2012 and was the largest single cause of fire damage to property.

Harris explained how it wasn’t until the 1980s that arson dogs came into vogue. Bomb and drug sniffing dogs had been used long before that.

He said Labradors, like Simmie, have 4,000 times more powerful noses than humans. Simmie trains by searching for a piece of cloth that has one drop of gasoline on it. The cloth is in a prescription bottle that is then placed in a Tupperware container.

Instead of pawing at the evidence, she sits when she finds something. She makes eye contact with Harris and then uses her nose to point to where the accelerant is located. This way she does not use her paw to contaminate the scene.

The other part of the July 23 talk focused on defensible space, and the increased need for it this year with the risk of fire escalating every day the drought lingers. Plus, it’s the law in California to have defensible space.

Leona Allen, who works for Lake Valley, said 75 percent of the houses in the Angora burn area that had defensible space survived.

While there are rules about what is allowed at certain distances from a structure, the main test is think about throwing a softball-size ember anywhere on your property. Would it catch fire? If, yes, you need better defensible space, Allen said.

More info about defensible space may be found online.

To the community,

On June 20, I fell at the Emerald Point Lookout and tourists (two or three families) assisted me by stopping the bleeding to a head wound I had and called the ambulance.

With the arrival of the South Lake Tahoe ambulance, came a team of great EMTs. They secured my safety (with my purse in the ambulance with me) and transported me to the Barton Hospital.

Every nurse, doctor, and emergency worker made me safe and saved my life. After a CAT Scan, it was determined that I had a brain bleed. Immediately, they arranged for me to be transported by air flight to Reno.

The rest of my life I owe to each healthcare worker in your area and the special tourists visiting your area that came to my aid.

I am now home in Texas and will add value to the world for the time that was given to me.
Martha E. Couch, Texas

By Kathryn Reed

I’ve had a thing for corn this summer. But that’s not the best food choice when someone in the house has braces. The recipe below, though, makes these yellow nuggets edible for her.

It seems like every ear I buy at the farmers’ market is sweeter than the next.

While these enchiladas could be made year-round with canned or frozen corn, that seems sacrilegious to me. The only way I would make this dish out of season is if I had frozen corn from the summer, which I do on occasion. (Just blanch the cobs, then take the kernels off the cob and put them in a freezer bag.)

It’s possible to get the corn, red onion, garlic, chilies and zucchini from most farmers’ markets.

A smoked cheese adds depth to the concoction. Cheddar and Gouda work well.

The heat factor is up to you. That’s controlled by the cayenne and chilies.

The number of enchiladas you get will depend on the size of tortillas and how much filling you put in each. I’ve always filled a 9 x 13 pan with the amount of filling this makes. Leftovers freeze well.

Corn and Zucchini Enchiladas

1 T olive oil

1 medium red onion, diced

Cayenne pepper

3 ears of corn, about 3 cups kernels

2½ tsp cumin

5 garlic cloves, minced

3 jalapeno or Serrano chilies, minced (remove seeds)

3 medium zucchini, diced, about 2 cups

½ C cilantro, chopped

Tortillas

1 16-ounce jar chunky salsa verde

6 ounces smoked cheddar cheese, grated, about 2 cups

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add onion and at least 3 pinches of cayenne. Sauté over medium heat until the onion is soft. Add the corn, cumin, garlic and chilies. Sauté until corn is tender. Add zucchini, cook until tender, but not mushy. Add cilantro.

Place 1/3 cup vegetables in the center of each tortilla and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of cheese. Place seam side down in 9 x 13 baking dish. Top with any remaining mixture. Pour enchilada sauce over tortillas. Top with any remaining cheese. Bake covered for 20-25 minutes.

• The gross crop value of agricultural production in El Dorado County for 2013 was up 20 percent from 2012. The $56.8 million yield in gross returns (not net profit) was up from the $47.1 million reported in 2012. Apples are the No. 1 crop.

• The deadline to signup for the 31st annual Tahoe Tennis Classic Tournament is July 28. The Aug. 1-3 doubles event is at Zephyr Cove Tennis Club. Complete information about the event and an entry form are available online.

• Dan Berger is now owner of Mad About Music, which has moved to the Swiss Chalet center in South Lake Tahoe.

• Truckee-based Squeeze In is opening a restaurant in Redwood City.

• The 12th annual Bike Big Blue is Sept. 7. To register or for more info, go online.

By Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times

If you want to slow climate change, white meat may be the right meat, according to two studies that tally the environmental effect of the beef industry.

Raising cattle in the U.S. requires 28 times as much land and 11 times as much irrigation water, and pumps at least five times as much planet-warming gases into Earth’s atmosphere than producing the equivalent calories of dairy products, poultry, pork or eggs, according to a study published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And from 1961 to 2010, worldwide emissions of planet-warming gases from livestock increased 51 percent, with the bulk of the increases coming from developing nations that are rapidly adopting the U.S. model of meat consumption, according to another study published Monday in the journal Climatic Change.

“For people, the obvious answer is: whenever possible, replace beef with something else,” said Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at Bard College and lead author of the study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The beef industry, not surprisingly, is not impressed.

Read the whole story

Two black bears trapped on July 22 have been released back in to the wild by Nevada Department of Wildlife. One was caught in Incline Village and the other Gardnerville.

Both bears were tagged, tattooed and microchipped in order to identify them in the future should they come back in to contact with humans.

A male black bear estimated to be 2 to 3 years of age was caught in Incline in an area where nuisance bear behavior had been occurring.It was taken about 50 miles east of Gardnerville.

The 4-year old male bear that was caught in a rural area of south Gardnerville was released into the Pine Nut Mountain Range.

Since July 1, NDOW has handled 15 bears in western Nevada. Eleven of those bears have been safely released back in to the wild. Two of the bears were hit and killed by cars, one was euthanized for public safety reasons and one was euthanized for depredating upon livestock.

Publisher’s note: The following letter was given to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors on July 22, 2014.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The construction of a new sheriff’s headquarters is long overdue and much needed. We must get our sheriff and his staff out of the clearly unacceptable facility in which they now protect and serve the public. Thus, I recommend that your board place on the July 29 agenda a discussion of the preliminary financing plan for the new sheriff’s headquarters.

Joe Harn

It is my understanding that the cost of the sheriff’s headquarters could be as high as $50 million and that construction may begin in about a year. If the cost is in the $50 million range, this will require the largest borrowing in county history. Regardless of the form of borrowing that the county ultimately chooses (bonds, certificates of participation, or some form of capital lease), we should discuss asking our citizens for conceptual approval of this borrowing in an advisory vote this November.

In November 1990, the voters enacted Measure A, the intent of which was to require voter approval for future borrowing in connection with the construction of new county facilities. Since at this time the county has not determined the appropriate form of borrowing for this project, I believe that we should discuss the matter at the July 29 board meeting. This will give the county time to get this advisory vote on November ballot.

If you have any questions, please contact me.

Sincerely,

Joe Harn, CPA and El Dorado County auditor-controller