Officials say fire 5 percent contained

Tuesday, June 6, 2000 | 11:24 a.m.

PAHRUMP -- After three days fighting a wildfire on four hours' sleep, Larry Benham still kept a sharp eye Monday on columns of smoke rising from the Buck Springs area, where 2,000 acres of public land had been torched by this morning.

A 160-acre brush fire on Sunday continued spreading flames through Monday night as hot, dry weather combined with winds gusting to 25 mph. The weather pushed the blaze into remote canyons in the Mount Stirling Wilderness Area Monday. The fire split into two arms late Sunday with one prong headed due north toward Wheeler Peak and the second spur traveling northeast towards Willow Peak in the Mount Charleston Wilderness Area.

The wildfire is burning a mix of rugged and remote U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management property about 17 miles northeast of Pahrump.

Benham, a fire prevention specialist for the U.S. Forest Service, stood in a juniper and pinyon pine forest that had burned black as volcanic lava. Flames cooked the trees and beaver-tail cactus and fried the earth to an inch deep. The fire forced the evacuation of campgrounds on Sunday, but so far no homeowners have been affected by the blaze.

"Human lives are No. 1 for us to protect," Benham said of the evacuated campgrounds. No injuries have been reported since the fire erupted on Saturday. Its cause is not known and may never be known, he said.

Officials said the fire was about 5 percent contained this morning. Forest Service firefighters said wind and extremely rough terrain are hampering their efforts, and they don't expect the blaze to be fully contained until Thursday at the earliest and fully under control until the weekend. Cool nights and higher humidity aided firefighters Sunday night and late Monday.

National Weather Service forecasters said this morning that winds were expected to pick up this afternoon, with gusts up to 25 mph. Windy conditions are forecast through Friday.

The primary focus for today's attack on the fire was to cut a 2-foot-wide fire break across the top of Bonanza Peak to keep the blaze from advancing into Cold Creek Canyon.

A total of 660 firefighters, including air and ground crews, are spending 12- to 16-hour shifts around the clock fighting the fire.

The air attack is using both helicopter and tanker planes to drop water and fire retardant on the fire.

Four of the five tanker planes fighting the fire can carry up to 1,000 gallons of water. The planes are working out of the Pahrump Valley Airport.

A larger C-130 cargo plane packing up to 2,000 gallons of water attacked a stubborn column of orange flame and smoke as Monday's temperatures climbed into the 80-degree range in the mountains.

Four small helicopters with buckets drew water from "pumpkins" -- portable reservoirs that look like gigantic orange wading pools perched on the side of the mountain.

A giant Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter was dumping 2,000 gallons of water drawn from Cold Creek, on the eastern side of the Spring Mountains opposite the fire, onto new hot spots.

Heavy Lift Helicopters, a company out of Apple Valley, Calif., sent three pilots and three mechanics to the fire with the Sikorsky. The company's other unit is fighting a wildland fire near Flagstaff, Ariz.

The Sikorsky crew rotates its three pilots every third sortie up the mountain from a pond in the tiny hamlet of Cold Creek. The helicopter holds up to 2,600 gallons of water and can make six drops an hour in the rugged terrain.

Pilot Rick Leishman estimated that the helicopter made 40 to 45 drops on the fire Monday. The pilots expect to work the fire for the next four or five days.

Conditions above the fire in Wheeler Pass made for tough flying, even in the heavy-duty Sikorsky, Leishman said.

"The wind up in the canyons is really kicking our ass, but it's nothing we can't handle," Leishman said. "It's a little scary and a little challenging."

It costs $6,000 an hour to operate the Sikorsky, said Steve La-Sky, Clark County Fire Department spokesman. Yet the losses are not counted in dollars, he said. "You can't look at this fire in terms of cost. You have to look at it in terms of natural resources."

The scorched earth was still hot to the touch Monday. Benham said nothing much would grow back in the blackened forest, except grasses and brush. "There will be no trees in our lifetime. It will be green grass and scrub," he said.

About 50 nervous Cold Creek residents were prepared to evacuate, but by late Monday only one-quarter of an acre had burned the top of the Spring Mountain ridgeline above the town.

"The Cold Creek residents are very concerned right now," Forest Service spokeswoman Betty Blodgett said. Hot shot firefighting teams from the Forest Service in five Western states -- California, Montana, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico -- headed above Cold Creek Monday to clear brush and prevent a flareup overnight.

The fire drew the attention of leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which runs a girls summer camp on Deer Creek Road between Kyle and Lee Canyons.

More than 400 Mormon girls between the ages of 12 and 18 were scheduled to arrive at Camp Stimpson today for a weeklong stay.

"We are in contact with officials from the U.S. Forest Service and fire department and as of yet have no plans to cancel the camp," said Mark Albright, president of the Red Rock stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"But I sent out a fax to all of the bishops in our stake, asking them to compile a list of ready drivers to take the girls off of the mountain if evacuation is called for," Albright said.

Exhausted fire crews camped on the lawn of a community park in Pahrump, pitching tents and horseshoes to relax. With strong southwest winds, there was no danger there from the fire, more than an hour away from this desert community. Pahrump is about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.

Raley's Supermarket at Vegas Drive and Jones Boulevard in Las Vegas sent a U-Haul truck full of donated food to the firefighters.

Forest Service biologist Debra Couche had some good news at the end of the day. When she flew with a crew measuring the size of the fire by Global Positioning Satellite, Couche saw 10 elk loping through the burnt area where Benham had driven through flames a day earlier. "They were fine, none were hurt," she said, "just going about their business."

Monday morning fire officials had roughly estimated the fire at 3,500 acres but after measuring it with the satellite system in the afternoon, they downgraded the size to 2,000 acres.

Officials said there is no way to predict how large the fire will get before it is beaten down.

"This fire is so unpredictable, we won't know how many acres will burn until the fire is out," Blodgett said this morning.