fire department

With the major forest fires burning throughout California, Oregon and Washington, it's a good time to remind everyone that there are fire restrictions in place in South Lake Tahoe.

The City of South Lake Tahoe and the U.S. Forest Service both have fire bans in place. Campfires and charcoal barbecues have been restricted to designated forest service recreation sites in the Lake Tahoe Basin since June 26, even if campers and back country hikers have a fire permit.

A large scale disaster is about to hit South Lake Tahoe. Sirens are blaring, emergency personnel are responding to the airport, screaming people are seriously injured while others cannot be saved, a triage is set up and an incident command center has been set up in the City Council chambers. A large airplane has just crashed with hazardous cargo on board at the Tahoe Valley airport.

Premonition? No. It's a planned emergency drill that will take place on Monday, August 25.

Summer months can be very challenging for our community blood program, so roll up your sleeves and show your support. To meet local hospital commitments blood banks need the help of about 125 donors per day.

As they were preparing to power up the hotel and casino during Sunday's power outage, MontBleu's generator had a malfunction, sending smoke billowing out of the resort.

Tahoe Douglas Fire Department responded. "We responded to a generator malfunction," said Eric Guevin, Tahoe Douglas Fire Marshall. "The generator unit was producing a substantial amount of smoke and we had to shut it down."

MontBleu got another generator up and running and emergency power was sent to the casino and hotel.

The El Dorado County Grand Jury has released their final report for the 2013-14 year and several South Lake Tahoe situations have been brought to light.

According to Jury Foreman Neil Cunningham, the jury compiled 20 reports and recommendations which were created as they followed up on inquiries from citizens and Grand Jury required inspections.

Several agencies are coming together on Saturday, June 21st for the first Wildfire Safety Expo in South Lake Tahoe.

The threat of wildfire is extremely high this fire season due to record drought conditions in the West. To provide information on creating home evacuation plans, preparing for fire, creating defensible space, the expo has been created.

The expo will be held in the TJ Maxx parking lot from noon to 3 p.m.

In order to create defensible apace from wildfires, members of Temple Bat Yam, Lake Valley Fire Protection District and the South Lake Tahoe Fire Department held a community clean-up day for the property around the synagogue on May 18, 2014.

The collaborative effort is an example of working together to produce Fire Adapted Communities, which are communities located in fire-prone areas that require little assistance from firefighters during a wildfire.

If you're interested in scheduling a Wildfire Prevention effort in your neighborhood, call the SLTFD at 530-542-6160.

South Tahoe Now sent a questionnaire out to all of the candidates for Douglas County Sheriff. We will be posting them in the order received.

1) What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department?

An East Fork Fire Department crew responded to an outbuilding fire in the Indian Hills neighborhood of Douglas County early Friday morning. They arrived to see an unattached garage fully involved.

The occupant of the home, Blake Lister, told firefighters that he was a BLM firefighter. He was asked to stay away from firefighters so they could fight the blaze. Lister then ran into the burning building and locked himself in.

They’ve been called unpleasant names that can’t be printed. They’ve received death threats. For a few days one may even assume they were hated. That was then.

They’re being called courageous. They’re being called heroes. They’re being thanked for caring about our environment and bringing the effect of fireworks in the lake to the forefront. That is now.

In order to be trained and prepared to handle active shooter situations, the South Lake Tahoe Police and Fire Departments took part in exercises at Lake Tahoe Community College on Thursday, April 3. They will continue the exercises on Monday at Tahoe Valley Elementary.

Both training sessions take place at school campuses that are on Spring Break so students and classes are not disturbed. The purpose of the exercises are to give the departments an opportunity to work together in order to be prepared should an active shooter incident take place within the city limits.

The Annual Home & Garden Show in South Lake Tahoe will be held April 25 to 26, 2014 at the South Lake Tahoe Recreation Complex.

The long list of vendors participating include the South Lake Tahoe Fire Department, I Can Fix THat, Just Fabulous Repurposed Furniture and Consignment, Second Chances, Everything Tahoe, Legal Shield, H20 at Home and many more. There will also be an author's corner this year, along with raffles, classes, demonstrations and live music.

Friday - 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Saturday - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A Wednesday night house fire in South Lake Tahoe has turned into a criminal investigation.

South Lake Tahoe Police officers and fire fighters responded to a residential fire in the 1100 block of Long Valley Avenue at 6:10 pm. They found the home fully engulfed in flames with fire starting to spread to nearby trees, though they were able to contain the fire to the area of the burning home. It appears the house is likely to be a total loss.

The house has received the attention of the police and fire department prior to Wednesday night's fire.

The Annual Home & Garden Show in South Lake Tahoe will be held April 25 to 26, 2014 at the South Lake Tahoe Recreation Complex.

The long list of vendors participating include the South Lake Tahoe Fire Department, I Can Fix THat, Just Fabulous Repurposed Furniture and Consignment, Second Chances, Everything Tahoe, Legal Shield, H20 at Home and many more. There will also be an author's corner this year, along with raffles, classes, demonstrations and live music.

Friday - 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Saturday - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

You've most likely seen the bins around town, covered in wrapping paper and notes asking for toy donations for Christmas Cheer. The call for toys being needed for children in the South Lake Tahoe community went out, and the community responded.

The City of South Lake Tahoe Fire Department and the Lake Valley Fire Department have announced their Christmas Fire Truck tours for the season:

In the city limits the fire truck leaves Station 2 at 5 pm each night and runs their route until 8 pm.

Tuesday, Dec 10 - Venice/Tahoe Keys Area
Wednesday, Dec 11 - Glenwood
Thursday, Dec 12 - Keys Blvd/State Streets
Friday, Dec 13 - South Y/Tata
Saturday, Dec 14 - Barton/Tahoe Island
Sunday, Dec 15 - Al Tahoe
Monday, Dec 16 - Springwood/Bijou Pines
Tuesday, Dec 17 - Main Areas along Hwy 50
Wednesday, Dec 18 - Stateline/Hotels

Billows of smoke can be seen from the South Shore today as the North Lake Tahoe Fire Department took advantage of the good conditions and continued their prescribed burn on 35 acres above Lariat Circle in the Incline Village General Improvement District.

Smoke resulting from the understory burn will affect the surrounding areas for approximately 24 hours. People that are smoke sensitive are advised to please stay inside and close their windows and doors as much as possible until the smoke dissipates.

Miss me? I have been working for the last year on The Children’s Memorial Tree and I would like to take this opportunity to say Thank You to the community of South Lake Tahoe for their support in rebuilding the memorial. I wanted to keep the Skibum as well as my alter ego out of the publicity due to the fact that there would be resistance to the idea from those that do not always agree with my views and I wanted no distractions. We had to play good cop / bad cop with the city in order to push the memorial through and guess which role I played.

The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit will lift fire restrictions on National Forest System lands beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, September 24, 2013. “The arrival of cooler, wetter weather brings safer conditions and has allowed us to lift restrictions on Forest Service managed lands,” said Forest Service fire chief Kit Bailey. “Even though restrictions will be lifted, we still need hikers and campers to use caution with campfires, stoves, barbecue grills and cigarette smoking.”

South Lake Tahoe firefighters were able to contain a fire in the attic of Lake Tahoe Pizza Co., in the 1100 block of Emerald Bay Road on Monday night.

The cause of the fire is undetermined at this time, said South Lake Tahoe Fire Department Shift Commander Rob Hembree in a news release. No injuries were reported.

The fire department responded at 11:09 p.m. Other responding agencies were the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, CalFire and Tahoe Douglas Protection District.

A man who nearly drowned earlier this week at Lake Tahoe in the Tahoe Keys owes his life to those who saw him struggle and dialed 911, and members of the South Lake Tahoe Fire Department and El Dorado County Search and Rescue team that swam in and saved him.

Witnesses on Monday saw the man in trouble while he was swimming near the boat docks and called 911. South Lake Tahoe Fire Department responded and was escorted out to where the man was seen swimming, said Fire Chief Bruce Martin.

The South Lake Tahoe Fire Department received a Technology Innovation Award by iPCR, the Electronic Patient Care Reporting System for Fire and Ambulance Services, at Tuesday's City Council meeting.

This award has only been given to five agencies in 20 years. It is for the “2013 Technology Innovation Award” and was given to SLTFD to recognize the exemplary work in implementing a technologically advanced patient care system that is fully electronic.

An oven fire inside the Red Hut restaurant at mid-town South Lake Tahoe was extinguished quickly by firefighters early Tuesday morning. No one was injured.

Flames 4 to 5 feet high and smoke were seen coming from the oven when South Lake Tahoe firefighters arrived at restaurant at around 5:30 a.m.

The quick response from firefighters kept the fire contained and was rapidly extinguished leaving minimal damage to building and there were no injuries, said Karl Koeppen, shift commander for the South Lake Tahoe Fire Department.

The cause of the fire is unknown at this time.

The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors honored Mark Divittorio for helping to rescue a family last month when their car plunged into the South Fork of the American River.

On Thursday, April 4 the Lemler family was traveling along Highway 50 when their vehicle left the roadway and ended up submerged and on its side in the American River. The three young daughters managed to escape to the roof of the vehicle. Mr. Lemler remained trapped inside the vehicle while Mrs. Lemler worked to keep his head above the water.