The strong, the brave and the fearless face down fire

Firefighters here in the basin have long told us, "It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when." So my favorite portraits of Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass hang by the front door where I can grab them on the way out. However not until the Angora Fire did I come to grips with awe and dismay on just how tenuous and combustible is our mountain paradise.

While we cruised into Emerald Bay on the M.S. Dixie early this week, visitors from Israel, India and New Jersey stood at the rail snapping pictures of flames leaping 40-50 feet into the air as the Angora fire jumped 89 and headed eagerly toward the lake before being turned back. The man from Israel turned to me and said, "You must live with a constant element of fear as we do."

I've never lived with an element of fear, and I feel sorry for my friend from Israel, but he made me recognize that I have been living for the past 23 years at Tahoe with an element of uncertainty.

It saddened me to watch ashes fall from the sky, knowing they were somebody's family photographs...gone.

Of course we sent some food and blankets to South Shore, and like so many others, are keeping our door open to any who might need shelter. We might be separated by 22 miles, but we share the same lake, the same High Sierra, the same volatile forest.

I drove up to the staging area at Heavenly and watched with no little appreciation as fatigued firefighters faltered in their steps while dismounting from trucks for a quick respite before returning to fight the raging firmament. It made me proud of the human race. Perhaps one day we will choose to fight fires instead of each other.

But I suspect tomorrow's full June moon is playing tricks with my mind.

The whole unsettling experience of the Angola Fire has caused me to wonder what I might do if my worldly possessions were to fall into Lake Tahoe as so many ashes.

Well, first I would cry for the lake. Then I would commission an artist to sculpt a bronze statue of Mark Twain that I could stand in front of the house with the confidence that he could not burn down. Perhaps I'll ask Kent Sweet if I can purchase the Twain statue that sits in front of the market at Galena, and then sit Sam right down in front of our lovely library on Alder. Yes, that's exactly what I'll do!

I'd love to interview those two firefighters who crawled under their emergency fire shelters and prayed while the inferno crept over the top of them, but I guess they don't want to be interviewed.

At the time of filing this column the Angola fire is not fully contained, and the possibility of high winds kicking it up again remains a threat. But it's not too early to say, "THANK YOU FIREFIGHTERS! THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS!"

Some of South Shore's 6,000 beds might go empty this Fourth of July, as cancellations come crashing in from across the country, but we can rest assured that those who got burned out of their homes this week will have a pillow to sleep on, and that's the bottom line.

Keep up the good fight, firefighters...we're at your back!



McAvoy Layne lives in Incline Village and visits schools throughout Nevada as the ghost of Mark Twain.