By William M. Welch
USA TODAY
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All Rights Reserved
LOS ANGELES — More than a dozen new large wildfires — triggered by lightning and fueled by high winds and hot, dry conditions — were reported Tuesday across the West, prompting evacuations and threatening homes.
A series of fires in northern Nevada temporarily shut down Interstate 80, forced evacuation of at least 50 homes and threatened 200 others, said Christie Kalkowski of the U.S. Forest Service, spokeswoman for the Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center.
The biggest new fire covered 57,000 acres in Nevada and was no more than 10% contained, said the Forest Service’s June McMillen, fire information officer at the Elko Interagency Dispatch Center. At least 160 firefighters were battling the blaze. “A lot of these (fires) started when thunderstorms moved through,” McMillen said.
Just east of Carson City, where three wildfires merged and covered 6,000 acres, the blazes temporarily threatened one of the state’s legal brothels, the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. Owner Dennis Hof said 24 remaining workers and one stranded customer were escorted out Monday evening in limousines when smoke from the nearby fires enveloped the business. He said the fire moved away overnight, allowing the business to reopen.
“Once the word got out that the Bunny Ranch was in jeopardy, fire departments from all over northern Nevada came to save this landmark,” Hof said with a laugh.
In Arizona, officials were evacuating an estimated 750 remaining tourists and workers from the remote North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park after a wildfire cut off the main access road and the area was closed Monday night. The fire, covering nearly 50,000 acres, had not entered the park itself.
Fire crews also battled new blazes in California, Colorado and New Mexico.
This year, wildfires have burned about 3.5 million acres. That’s more than double the 1.3-million-acre annual average for this date, the National Interagency Fire Center reported.