Copyright 2006 DR Partners d/b/a Las Vegas Review-Journal
All Rights Reserved
By FRANCIS McCABE
Las Vegas Review-Journal (Nevada)
Gray smoke rose above the sloping hills alongside Mount Potosi Canyon Road near Mountain Springs on Sunday as a wind-whipped wildfire engulfed more than 200 acres by 10 p.m.
Federal and Clark County emergency workers were called about noon as 20 mph winds propelled the fire rapidly through dry brush.
Several homes and camp areas were too close to the fire, so authorities conducted a voluntary evacuation.
At least six area residents, one camper and 30 or so paintball enthusiasts heeded the suggestion to leave the area, Las Vegas police said. A nearby Boy Scout camp was not being used Sunday, so there were fewer people to worry about than there would have been otherwise.
There were no reports of injuries caused by what Clark County Fire Department spokesman Bob Leinbach described as “the most significant (wild)fire this year.”
Firefighters fear there will be more of these types of fires to come, however. This wildfire season could be worse than those of recent years because there has been so little rain of late, Leinbach said.
The cause of Sunday’s fire was not immediately known.
About 50 members of the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management joined the firefighting efforts of the Clark County Fire Department Sunday.
Units with the Metropolitan Police Department and the Nevada Highway Patrol also assisted.
But by 3:30 p.m. the fire had become “indefensible” as it started to spread up the mountainside, Leinbach said.
A helicopter and a plane were used to dump water and fire retardant chemicals on the flames.
The spread of the blaze was expected to slow overnight, but the prospects were contingent upon the weather, Leinbach said. Forecasters said the dry weather and 15 mph to 25 mph winds were expected to continue tonight.
Mother Nature may help the firefighters out with some rain this morning. Showers are in the forecast, with developing thunderstorms reaching the valley after 7 a.m., said Charlie Schlott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Las Vegas. Less than a quarter-inch of rain is expected, however.
If the storms bring more lightning than rain, they could ignite more wildfires in the region. Lightning started a late June 2005 fire in the Goodsprings-Mountain Springs area that scorched about 33,600 acres southwest of Las Vegas and cast a smoky haze over the valley for days.
Nevada forestry officials estimated about 1.1 million acres of land burned across the state in 2005. Nearly three-quarters of the burned land was in Clark and Lincoln counties in Southern Nevada.
In 2004 about 41,000 acres of Nevada burned. Though the acreage of 2004 was less than in 2005, the structural loss was greater in 2004. In the Carson City area 17 homes were destroyed by wildfire in 2004. There was little structural loss due to wildfires in Nevada in 2005.
The largest amount of land burned in one year in Nevada was 1.8 million acres in 1999.