Wildfires are likely to follow

Jace Radke

Thursday, May 4, 2000 | 11:04 a.m.

With a warmer than normal summer predicted across the West, fire-fighting agencies are gearing up for what could be a long wildfire season.

Fires are already burning in Arizona, and the tinder-box conditions there are similar to those in Nevada, according to Bob Butler, the state's acting National Park Service fire management officer.

"They've had something like 180 days without rain in Arizona and that has left them with very dry fuels," Butler said. "We've got the same problems here with dry vegetation and climbing temperatures. We're expecting a pretty good fire season."

In the Great Basin, which includes much of Nevada, about 1.7 million acres were charred by fires last year. Much of that devastation was in the north-central and northeastern parts of the state, including a lightning-sparked fire that ran through 47,000 acres on the Churchill-Lander county line.

The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, is already coordinating firefighting efforts in Arizona and New Mexico and is looking at California and Nevada as states that could soon flare up, center spokesman and Bureau of Land Management official Jack Sept said.

"We have our folks gearing up for an active season, and a normal season is pretty active to begin with," Sept said. "We are getting indications of very dry grasses and ground cover in the eastern Great Basin, and on the western side it could go either way.

"It would be pretty unusual to have 1.7 million acres burn again, but the indicators are there."

At one point last year nearly 80 percent of the fire center's resources and firefighters were in Nevada battling wildland fires.

While most of Nevada's fires were north and east of Clark County, the southern part of the state did experience some major wildland fires last year. The Blue Garden fire charred more than 10,000 acres 85 miles northeast of Las Vegas, while about 1,900 acres were burned in the Rainbow Ranch fire about a mile southwest of Elgin.

This season Nevada faces the possibility of fires in both its lowlands and high country, Mount Charleston Forest Service fire specialist Brian Steinhardt said.

February rains spurred new growth of grass and scrub in low- lying areas. But that new growth is quickly drying out as temperatures rise. And a light snowpack has resulted in dry conditions in higher elevations.

"Last year we had rains from April through mid-June, and that helped us, but this year we aren't getting that," Butler said. "The pinions and junipers haven't had rain in places like Mount Charleston and Shivwits Plateau near the Grand Canyon. If we get our normal thunderstorms, we could see some fires."

Rain in the Southwest would be a welcome ally to the more than 500 firefighters battling a blaze in Arizona's Tonto National Forest, but in the long run precipitation now could make future fires tougher, Sept said.

"It really is a double-edged sword," Sept said.

Jace Radke is a reporter for the Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-2318 or by e-mail at jace@lasvegassun.com