It’s only two-dozen miles from where the Conner Fire started on Friday to where eight people lost their lives in a horrific boating accident on Saturday.
A cold front drove the fire to more than 27 square miles in size, leaving a scorched slash mark northeast across the Pine Nuts and two homes in rubble in its wake.
Having a structure fire spread to the wildland is actually pretty rare, though on Friday firefighters had their hands full just keeping the rest of Pine View Estates standing.
A day later the wind shifted 180 degrees pushing the fire back, but also creating intensely dangerous conditions on Lake Tahoe.
The U.S. Coast Guard reported 30 knot winds and swells of 6-8 feet in the far corner of Lake Tahoe.
Video on social media shows the winds pushing boats up on the rocks at the Lake. Rescuers showed extreme courage crossing Lake Tahoe to get to the location near the inlet to Emerald Bay in stormy weather.
On Monday afternoon, the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office reported recovering the last of eight people to have died when their boat capsized.
All of which occurred over the first 24 hours of summer.
The mountains hereabouts are beautiful but when things go wrong, they go very, very wrong.
We’ve had a break from very large fires since 2021, but there was always a chance factors would combine to set the mountains ablaze.
And Lake Tahoe is not a body of water to be trifled with under any circumstances.
We sincerely hope that we’ve seen our share of catastrophes for 2025, but that’s something that’s entirely up to Providence.
Use fire with caution, wear your life vest and please be careful. We’d like to have you around in September.