Fire season costs racking up

Monday, July 24, 2000 | 10:21 a.m.

"The challenge for us this year is we're experiencing so many fires in such a short time that it's really wearing down our resources," said Bob Ashworth of the Nevada Division of Forestry.

"We've been very fortunate to get what we need as we need it from outside the state, but the availability of that help is dependent on fires throughout the West. We're experiencing a very active fire season."

So far this year, fires have burned more than 120,000 acres of Nevada range. Last year, a rash of lightning-sparked fires in August burned 1.6 million acres.

State Budget Director Perry Comeaux said the Division of Forestry has $1 million aside for firefighting costs, but it remains to be seen whether that'll be enough to carry through the summer.

"They've been so busy putting fires out that they haven't gotten very far in putting together the reports to show what the costs are," Comeaux said.

"But I think things would have to get pretty bad before we got into trouble. If these conditions continue we might have some problems, but we're not there yet."

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