Buck Springs blaze spreads

Mary Manning and Jace Radke

Monday, June 5, 2000 | 12:08 p.m.

PAHRUMP -- Up to 660 firefighters swarmed over Buck Springs today in an effort to contain a 3,500-acre wildfire that threatened to burn across the top of the Spring Mountains as hot, dry, windy weather fueled the blaze.

By Sunday the fire had scorched only 160 acres in the Mount Stirling Wilderness area about 17 miles northeast of Pahrump, but the winds kicked up and so did the fire Sunday afternoon.

Firefighters fear that flames consuming white fir trees, pinyon juniper and heavy, dry brush could leap across the Spring Mountains into the Mount Charleston area and Lee Canyon, Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest spokeswoman Betty Blodgett said today.

Nine air tankers circled the fire as it spread this morning, dropping gel-like fire retardant. Four helicopters and four tanker trucks are ferrying water and fire retardant to the fire near Wheeler Peak. The aircraft are using Pahrump Airport as a staging area.

"We already had dense and dry vegetation up there, and then the winds picked up, spot fires popped up, and it took off," Blodgett said. "Now we have a situation where we almost have a two-headed fire."

One prong is heading northwest toward Mount Stirling and more remote wilderness lands, but the other section is moving east toward Willow Peak and the 60-family town of Cold Creek. Cold Creek was the site of a major fire that burned for almost a week in the summer of 1980.

Crews attacked the ridge lines along Willow Peak overnight, aided by lower humidity and cooler temperatures, Blodgett said. But the National Weather Service is predicting winds gusting up to 25 mph.

"We expect more flareups today," Blodgett said.

An old burn area and some rocky terrain with less dense vegetation on the back side of Willow Peak will help slow the flames, according to fire officials.

"There is no danger to any people in Cold Creek or anywhere else at this point," Blodgett said. "There are no structures or (private) property threatened, and we're hoping that we can have it under control by Thursday."

For that to happen, the weather will have to cooperate, and that may not happen, according to National Weather Service forecasters. A cold front is pushing 15-mph winds out of the southwest, increasing to 25 mph this afternoon, according to the weather service.

"Anytime you have high winds, these (high) temperatures and low humidity, there is a chance for this to happen," Clark County Fire Department spokesman Steve La-Sky said this morning.

"It's in a real remote area, but that's still a tragedy, because we have to see some of this old timber burn. In this arid climate it takes a long time for the timber to grow, and we won't see it come back in our lifetime."

The 1980 Cold Creek fire burned bristlecone pine trees up to 3,000 years old.

The National Forest Service, Clark County Fire Department, National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Pahrump Valley Fire Department and the Nevada Division of Forestry all have crews at the fire. American Indian crews from Montana reservations, hotshot crews from California and Texas and prison crews are also battling the fire. The effort is headed by BLM incident commander Tudor Burdick.

Other wildfires continue to burn throughout the West in Arizona, California, Colorado and Utah, and like the Buck Springs fire, dry hot weather has hampered containment efforts.

As those fires burn, New Mexico lawmakers in Washington and President Clinton have launched a proposal to spend at least $54 million this year on fire prevention efforts, primarily in Western states.

Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., have led the effort. Forest Service officials have told Bingaman that they could spend the $54 million this summer in efforts to clear out underbrush and trees less than 12-inches in diameter, primarily in urban areas next to woodlands. Bingaman hopes to make the money request as part of an agriculture spending bill being discussed in Congress.

It has not been determined whether Nevada would be eligible for a piece of the money, Jim Bonham, a Bingaman spokesman said. Other agencies, including the BLM the Bureau of Indian Affairs also are expected to request money for fire-prevention programs.

"That $54 million figure is likely to grow," Bonham said.

In a separate allocation, Nevada would receive $11 million of $17 million tucked into the agriculture bill -- money slated for range restoration of land burned by wildfires last year. Much of the money would be used to eliminate the fast-burning cheatgrass, a weed, and for replanting native plants. Fires burned about 1.7 million acres in Nevada last year.

In New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo blaze, 28,283 acres had been burned by late Sunday and hundreds of people evacuated the pine forest east of Santa Fe. The Los Alamos fire burned 47,000 acres and 200 homes.