Governor likely to seek federal aid for ranchers hit by fires

Scott Sonner

Friday, Aug. 13, 1999 | 12:13 p.m.

RENO, Nev. - Gov. Kenny Guinn is likely to declare an emergency and seek federal disaster relief for ranchers victimized by a rash of wildfires across 1 million acres of Nevada, but won't decide until next week, his spokesman said today.

Guinn intends to meet with officials from the five hardest-hit counties to fully assess the damage on Thursday, his press secretary Jack Finn said.

More than 2,000 head of cattle and hundreds of thousands of acres of prime grazing land were destroyed in a week of fires that blackened an area larger than Delaware. At least two mobile homes also were destroyed at Spring Creek in Elko County.

Guinn and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., took aerial tours of the central and eastern Nevada on Thursday to get a first-hand look at the charred range land.

"Based on what the governor saw ... both in the air and on the ground, it does seem likely he would ask for federal aid," Finn told The Associated Press today.

The Republican governor said on Thursday he had expected to see charred mountainsides but was overwhelmed during an overflight by the "vastness" of the burned sage brush, cheat grass and pinion pine.

"It just went on for miles," said Guinn, who toured Winnemucca, Battle Mountain and parts of Elko County.

Gibbons said he would help coordinate with Guinn any bid for federal assistance.

"Hopefully we'll be able to take care of some things and help these people," Gibbons said while touring a stretch from Winnemucca to Lovelock in north central Nevada aboard an Air National Guard helicopter.

The area was one of the hardest hit, with more than 360,000 acres consumed in a single complex of fires.

"They've lost a part of their economy," Gibbons said.

Robert Uithoven, spokesman for Gibbons who was on the tour, said Gibbons would help expedite any federal request but that it was up to the governor to decide whether to declare an emergency.

"What we saw was absolute devastation. It was mile after mile of scorched earth. Just mountainside after mountainside, range after range was burned to nothing," Uithoven said Friday.

"It's going to have a devastating affect on ranchers out there," he said.

Guinn credited firefighters in Elko County with keeping property losses to a minimum and thanked hotshot crews from Arizona and New Mexico for their help.

"The potential for what could have happened here is devastating," the Republican governor said.

So far this year, 1.3 million acres or nearly 2,100 square miles of Nevada wildland have burned - more than any other state and about half the national total for 1999.