Locals and authorities clash at Tassajara Fire, and probe for an explanation of the source.

Before she drove into a roaring wildfire Saturday afternoon, Shavaun Wolfe gave her three children instructions: “If it comes up here, go up to the neighbor’s lake.”

Wolfe thinks she was the last vehicle allowed onto Tassajara Road before officials closed the road Saturday afternoon to battle the blaze, first reported at 3pm Sept. 19. As she navigated falling burning branches all over the road, she blew a tire, but made it to her friend Kathy O’Connell’s Reo Ranch.

Wolfe had reached O’Connell, who was out of town, to ask which horses she wanted to save. The breeder told Wolfe to take three, two Friesians and a warmblood.

She had to leave nine others behind, and sped out of the smoke back to her own ranch, just a few miles beyond the fire line. She’s feeding and watering the animals there until they can go home – if there’s anything left of home after the Tassajara Fire is out. As of the Weekly’s deadline, it had burned 1,100 acres, destroying 11 homes and at least seven outbuildings. (O’Connell hasn’t been back yet, but believes her home is still standing; other neighbors rescued the remaining nine horses.)

Just a day after this heroic effort, Wolfe was out of bread and milk. She made a plan to meet her boyfriend at the roadblock on Carmel Valley Road at Cachagua Road. But when she rolled up to get bread, milk and a pizza, she was greeted by a CHP officer who suspected her of drunk driving.

Wolfe was arrested for the first time in her life and spent the night in Monterey County Jail.

“I was not drunk or weaving,” she claims. “I pulled up to the blockade. I was just getting supplies.”

Welcome to Cachagua. Residents have been through fires before, and they’re willing and eager to disregard evacuation orders and stay behind to defend their property and everything they’ve worked for. They live out here for a reason, many of them will tell you, and part of that is to not be bossed around by people with badges.

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As of Tuesday afternoon, there were 754 firefighters battling the blaze, which was 75-percent contained.

Thousands of residents remain grateful for the inspired firefighting; 63-year-old Jack West is not one of them. Come Monday night at about 6pm, he confronted a firefighter in the fire zone. After the firefighter reportedly told him to leave the disaster area because it was too dangerous, West allegedly pushed and tried to punch him. He was arrested for assault.

“We would love to have everybody back in now,” Deputy Chief Sheriff Tracy Brown says. “But until the fire department tells us it’s safe, we’re not going to do that.”

The fire was first reported Saturday afternoon, and spread fast, jumping Cachagua Road and Tassajara Road.

Sheriff’s detectives investigated a crime scene at the source of the fire Saturday night while Cal Fire officials investigated how the fire started. At that spot on Cachagua Road, near the intersection of Tassajara Road, one body was found. The coroner was examining dental records at press time to identify the body. (Visit www.mcweekly.com for updates.)

That one fire-related death is also believed to be the cause of the fire: The sheriff’s office is investigating a possible suicide as the cause. Witness reports and sheriff office comments suggest a surreal suicide at that: A parked sedan about 30 feet from the origin of the fire, which may have been a man on fire after he self-immolated and ran into the brush.

To fire officials, such tragedy is surprisingly familiar territory. Less than 10 percent of wildfires have natural causes like lightning. Cigarettes, equipment, catalytic converters in cars are all much more common causes, says Cal Fire spokesman Jonathan Pangburn.

Another surprisingly common cause: The accidental dragging of chains behind vehicles, believed to be the cause of the Laureles Fire, which scorched 100 acres along Highway 68, and started within an hour of Tassajara Fire on Saturday.

Similarly, dragging chains are believed to have started three fires in one day in August in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

It’s been a brutal year for wildfires, which Pangburn says is no surprise: “We’re in a drought: That’s a pretty standard message statewide at this point, and across the whole West.”

Drought-stressed vegetation is more susceptible to disease and is starting to die off, he says. “In Cachagua, we’re seeing individual tree die-off in oaks and conifers. Even the brush is dying because there’s just not enough water.”

That means more fuel. The Tassajara Fire burned fast and hot, and – to the chagrin of firefighting forces – changed direction with the shifting wind. It blew first from the east, then from the west on Saturday, then from the east Sunday morning and then from the west again.

It was on that first quick shift of direction Saturday, just a few hours after the fire was first reported at 3pm, that the fire grew quickly and ran uphill and through a community.

“That’s when we lost the houses,” Incident Commander Mark Edria says.

Geoffrey McMillan watched his neighbor’s house burn from a quarter-mile away.

“The flames were like 200 feet,” he says. “It was engulfed in seconds.”

The fire was also surprisingly loud, he says: “You can hear it sucking oxygen, like thunder, like a roar.”

On a short drive up Tassajara Road from Carmel Valley Road, entire hillsides have been obliterated – there are no skeletons of the old trees or logs, just ash with stubble.

“We call this moonscaping,” Edria says. “That means the fire burned incredibly hot. Whatever was here is just gone.”

Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.