Angora Fire.

Those living and working at the North Shore are a bit concerned about the impact the fire will have on tourism, despite the fact the fire was at the other end of the lake.

There is plenty of blame to go around regarding the fire.

The article kind of skirts around the basic problem, and that's the fact greed is at the root of it.

The entire area around the lake should have NEVER been allowed to have been developed. It should have been made into a national park. What has been done to it is nothing short of criminal. That's why I get pissed off reading about the fire and have perhaps slightly less sympathy for the victims there than I do over those who were victimized by Hurricane Katrina.

As the World Turns.

An illegal campfire is blamed for the Angora Fire, which burned over 3,000 acres and destroyed over 200 homes near South Lake Tahoe.

Yesterday it was 80 percent contained.
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The jury simply wasn't convinced Chaz Higgs was innocent of killing wife Kathy Augustine.
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As the World Turns.

Already the Higgs case is being deliberated by the jury.

This is interesting:

Higgs had said that the night before Augustine stopped breathing, she didn't want to talk with Higgs about him leaving because she wasn't feeling well. He said she went to bed early, at about 8:45 p.m., and received no phone calls.

But Michelle Ene, Augustine's former executive assistant, testified Augustine had called her house three or four times that night, and that she and Augustine finally connected by phone at about 10:15 p.m.

"They had been talking that night," Ene said of Augustine and Higgs, "She was upset. He had opened a bank account and he was going to leave."

When Higgs told Ene days later that he and Augustine has "worked it out" and reached an agreement, she said she was suspicious.

"I didn't believe that for a minute," Ene said. "She would not have let it go."

Long-time Augustine friend Nancy Vinnik testified she opposed the marriage with Higgs from the start, and was shocked and shaken the day before Augustine's funeral, when Higgs was at their Las Vegas house drunk and calling his wife names.

"He was on the phone talking to Kathy's mother and he said 'your daughter is nothing but a (expletive) whore and a (expletive),'" Vinnik said. "It was awful to hear that. I couldn't believe he could call her mother and say something so disgusting and despicable."

Chaz was sure a loving husband.
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The end seems to be near for the Angora Fire.
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Angora Fire.

More people will be allowed to return home now that the fire is about 55% contained.

The Angora Fire.

Some 2,000 residents were forced to evacuate when the fire surged yesterday afternoon.

The latest developments can also be found here.

Human Stupidity

as at the root of fires like the Angora fire near South Lake Tahoe.

This is what happens when clearcutting of trees from the Gold Rush era to the obscene development of the region in recent decades is allowed. Lake Tahoe should NEVER have been allowed to have been developed. It's like having the assholes take over Yosemite, or take over the Grand Canyon, or take over Crater Lake. It should have been a national park, not a fucking playground for the megarich.

It's a travesty, and I have to laugh at locals who sport "Keep Tahoe Blue" bumperstickers on their cars or SUVs when they have homes up there which helped create the goddamned mess.

Now the Angora fire has spread.

Early this afternoon I went hiking--yes, hiking--up Galena Creek Trail, which is a ways off Highway 431 on the way to Incline Village (the north shore of Lake Tahoe). The air was smoky, but not too bad as I was hiking the trail behind the obscene McMansions of Montreaux (the wealthiest part of Reno). About an hour later, as I was walking back, the sky was more full of smoke, and that must have been around the time the fire jumped over to Highway 89.

By the way, the south part of the lake is hardly working class, despite nonsense from sites like Democratic Underground. The average home in that area is "affordable" if you're upper middle class: In an article in today's Reno Gazette-Journal, it pointed out the average home was over $400,000. This isn't a poverty-stricken area, not even the south shore.

The east shore and north shore are the most obscene of all, with homes averaging over a million dollars. And the worst of the worst is along Lakeshore Drive in Incline Village. You can't see the goddamned lake because of the fucking mansions blocking the view. You are not allowed to enter the beaches because they are "private." It just pisses me off just thinking about it. It sounds cruel, but it's too damned bad the fire didn't start there and rid the world of that extravagant shit. As you recall, I used to post pictures of those eyesores which came on the real estate market in the days when my scanner worked.

Much if not most of the area surrounding the lake is public land (including Sand Harbor and the spectacular Emerald Bay), but the entire region surrounding the lake should have been. Now Lake Tahoe is paying the price with the damage to its environment.

As the World Turns.

The Angora fire is about 40 percent contained, and some residents will be allowed to return home today, provided they have homes to go to.

Meyers isn't ritzy like Incline Village, and it isn't right on the shore of the lake. However, these residents aren't dirt poor either, unlike many people who lived in New Orleans at the time of Katrina.
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Chaz Higgs insists he didn't kill his wife, but it was all her fault the marriage was shot to shit.

Earlier, the prosecution wound up its case by presenting some proof of Higgs' devotion to his wife, State Controller Kathy Augustine:

Prosecutors finished presenting their case Monday morning with testimony from a woman to whom Higgs proclaimed his love while he was married and his disdain for his wife.
“I made a pact to myself that I would live every day making her life a living hell,” Higgs said of Augustine in a December 2005 e-mail to Linda Ramirez, a co-worker at the Renown South Meadows medical center.
“It is my quest in life to drive this bitch crazy and it is working; she is losing her mind,” Higgs said in the e-mail, read by Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hicks. “I have things in motion. I am already gone. “I will be free and I will be with you.”

Sure he didn't kill her. Sure.
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