Carson City firefighters were called in Wednesday to help extinguish a blaze in an Incline Village condominium.
No one was injured in the fire that claimed five condos at a complex at Juanita Drive and Lake Shore Boulevard.
North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District Battalion Chief Dennis Perry said the fire was started by plumbers working in a wall.
"By the time we got there, the five units were fully involved (in fire)," Perry said.
The condominiums were built in the late '60s and the early '70s, and firefighters had difficulty reaching several areas.
"There were a lot of hidden spaces and small places for the fire to travel," he said. "It was a good two hours before we had the fire completely extinguished."
None of the units that burned nor the two that suffered smoke damage were occupied at the time of the fire.
Perry said the units belonged to absentee owners and no one was displaced as a result.
The complex consists of several buildings of more than a dozen units each. The tallest buildings are three stories high.
Perry said 11 engines and 56 firefighters from eight different fire departments helped fight the fire.
In addition to Carson City, firefighters from Truckee, North Tahoe, Northstar, Tahoe-Douglas, the Nevada Division of Forestry and the California Division of Forestry responded to the fire.
"This was a major fire for Incline," Perry said. We only get two or three significant structure fires in a year. All of our neighbors showed up just like they're supposed to."
Firefighters were able to stop the blaze from spreading.
"It was a good save," he said. "Especially when you consider we stopped it where we found it and there were no injuries to citizens or firefighters."