Firefighters work to finish off Trout Canyon fire

Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2000 | 11:06 a.m.

Firefighters could fully contain the 825-acre Trout Canyon wildfire burning 30 miles west of Las Vegas by tonight, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman said this morning.

As clouds moved into Southern Nevada early today, 225 firefighters from as far away as North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska scaled 1,000 feet of steep terrain on Griffith Peak, digging a fire line in the dirt that contained 80 percent of the flames, spokeswoman Kathleen Sproul said.

Once ground crews, including the Midnight Suns from Alaska, carve the line around the top of the fire, it will be contained, Sproul said.

It will take seven hours, once the blaze is out, for ground crews and firefighters from the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Nevada Division of Wildlife, Clark County, Nevada prisons and volunteers to hike down the 3 miles from the rugged peak, Forest Service incident commander Tom Dean said.

Residents of Trout Canyon can breathe easier, Sproul said. About 25 homes that were threatened by the fire that is believed to have started from a lightning strike on Thursday are in no danger.

Federal scientists will check the soils today to see if a summer thunderstorm could trigger flooding and erosion, posing a new danger to the small community with 60 residential lots, Sproul said.

Most of the damage was done to pinyon, juniper and conifer trees up to an elevation of 9,400 feet. Officials feared over the weekend that 3,000-year-old bristlecone pine trees could have been burned in the blaze, but they appeared to have survived the intense fire, Sproul said.

This year's fire season is the worst in the West in half a century, fire officials said. So far, Nevada has experienced 817 wildfires that burned more than 460,000 acres.

The Trout Canyon fire is one of nine fires burning in Nevada. Three new wildland fires apparently sparked by lightning broke out late Monday in northern and central Nevada. Located near Winnemucca and Caliente, the fires have consumed about 2,200 acres combined.

According to interagency fire reports, six fires burned in the O'Neil Basin southwest of Jarbidge on 37,000 acres, including a portion of the Jarbidge Wilderness Area in Northern Nevada.

The 7,000-acre Fireball blaze was nearly contained today northeast of Fernley. The 7,500-acre Twin Peak fire east of Fallon was only 20 percent contained.

The 7,500-acre Cherry fire near Ely was 75 percent contained, and the Phillips Ranch fire at 1,300 acres was 25 percent contained.