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– E S T. 18 51
– Midweek Edition – VOLUME 174 • ISSUE 19 | $1.00
mtdemocrat.com
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2025
A NEW BEGINNING FFA teen starts over after losing show animals in barn fire
Shelly Thorene Staff writer
S
Photo courtesy of the El Dorado County Fire Protection District
Flames erupt from a Lonesome Dove Court home on Feb. 27. Two fire personnel were injured while helping to extinguish the blaze.
First responders injured in Shingle Springs blaze Mountain Democrat staff A fire captain and firefighter from the El Dorado County Fire Protection District were injured while battling a residential fire on Lonesome Dove Court in Shingle Springs on Feb. 27, announced a press release from the fire district sent March 2. During firefighting operations, the fire captain sustained serious burn injuries and was subsequently transported to UC Davis Medical Center for treatment, the release notes; while the firefighter sustained a minor leg injury and was transported to Mercy Hospital of Folsom and released that evening. The house fire was initially reported as a chimney fire at 9:17 p.m. last Thursday.
“Engine 28, where the injured fire captain and firefighter were assigned, arrived and found a fire that had spread to the attic of the home. The initial arriving engines began fire attack while additionally requested resources were enroute,” states the news release. “Fire conditions rapidly changed in the home and the crew was engulfed in fire, injuring the two. The fire was later ■ See INJURIES, page A4
eventeen-yearold Amber Tyler and her family have been through tough times in recent years. Their home in Grizzly Flat burned to the ground in the 2021 Caldor Fire and in February this year, another fire destroyed a barn with Tyler’s two show animals inside. After losing their home in 2021, the family of four — mom Candance, dad Leonard, Amber and her little sister, Lily, 6 — moved into a 28-foot travel trailer parked in Amber’s uncle’s front yard on El Dorado Road. The Tylers are a fifthgeneration family in Grizzly Flat and lost a total of seven houses in the Caldor Fire, including the original 1854 homestead and a blacksmith shop. The family moved back to their property at the end of this January after a new barn had been completed and to be near their new home, which is also nearly complete. “We had only been there less than a week when new the barn burned down,” Candance shared. Amber got the call around 6:30 p.m. on
Mountain Democrat photo by Shelly Thorene
Union Mine High School student Amber Tyler, 17, of Grizzly Flat spends time with her new lamb at a friend’s house in Diamond Springs. The animal is being boarded there until her family has the funds to re-build after a fire destroyed their barn and killed her show animals Feb. 11. Feb. 11 from her mom while she was staying in El Dorado at friend Kennedy Ramirez’s home.
“What are you doing? I’ve got really bad news,” Amber recalled her mother saying. “The barn
was on fire and your animals didn’t make it out.” ■ See TYLER, page A8
February storms help snowpack but disparities remain California Department of Water Resources News release
MAIL LABEL
Photo by Xavier Mascareñas / California Department of Water Resources
California Department of Water Resources staff Angelique Fabbiani-Leon, state hydrometeorologist; Jordan Thoennes, water resources engineer; and Andy Reising, Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit manager, left to right, conduct the third media snow survey of the 2025 season at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada. The snow survey is held approximately 90 miles east of Sacramento off Highway 50 in El Dorado County.
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The Department of Water Resources conducted the third snow survey of the season at Phillips Station on Feb. 28. The manual survey recorded 34 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 13.5 inches, which is 58% of average for this location. The snow water equivalent measures the amount of water contained in the snowpack and is a key component of DWR’s water supply forecast. Statewide, the snowpack is 85% of average for this date. This winter has been marked by a series of extremes, as unseasonably dry and warm conditions have been interrupted by powerful storms that temporarily boosted the snowpack to near normal. That was certainly the case in February where multiple rounds of atmospheric rivers earlier in the month brought the statewide snowpack to near average only to have dry conditions return. Following the storms in the middle of February, the statewide snowpack was 97% of average and has since fallen to 85%. For every day that it’s not snowing, the averages will continue to drop. DWR’s electronic readings from 130 stations placed throughout the Sierra Nevada indicate that the statewide snowpack’s snow water equivalent is 19.2 inches, or 74%
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