LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Clearlake officials are working to put together solutions to carry out the recovery needed due to the Cache fire, which firefighters are continuing to work to fully contain.

The fire, burning since Wednesday afternoon, remained at 83 acres on Friday, with containment up to 45%, said Lake County Fire Chief Willie Sapeta.

Early Saturday, one zone in Lake County’s Zonehaven system remained under mandatory evacuation, Zone CLE-E157, which contains everything in the city of Clearlake to the south of 18th Avenue and east of Highway 53 except for Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital.

City Manager Alan Flora said he visited the fire scene on Friday morning and there were a few hotspots to deal with but little fire activity.

He said the hope is that evacuees can return home on Sunday, but added that a lot of work by Pacific Gas and Electric to replace damaged power infrastructure remains to be done.

Overall, Sapeta — who was one of the first on scene at the incident, which is estimated to have destroyed 137 structures, including 56 homes — said the progress on the fire was “looking good.”

What’s not looking good is the prospects for the city of Clearlake to get help in the complex task of recovery.

City officials have acknowledged that because the fire doesn’t meet the thresholds for state and federal disaster assistance — as has been the case with most of Lake County’s destructive fires — much of the multimillion dollar recovery process and its cost could end up falling on the city.

Flora said the state is going to provide very limited resources to the city for the incident.

He said the city will get a hazmat team from the Department of Toxic Substances Control, which is waiting on the county of Lake to declare a public health emergency so the phase one cleanup can begin.

“Hopefully that will be soon,” said Flora.

As of Friday, that public health emergency had not been agendized by the Board of Supervisors for its next meeting on Tuesday.

Flora said the state hazmat team won’t address any debris clean up from homes or vehicles.

He said the city is working with Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry and Sen. Mike McGuire to try to piece together a solution or the cleanup, but he said so far they have no solid plan.

“We are still working to see if we can get any short term housing assistance for those that lost their homes, but nothing happening yet from the state on that front,” Flora said.

He also didn’t have a dollar estimate for damage.

Flora said that estimate has to be submitted by the California Office of Emergency Services by Wednesday, “so it will start coming together soon.”

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.