Residents of Kyle Canyon discuss possible evacuation

Thursday, July 18, 2002 | 11:01 a.m.

Some of the 800 residents of Mount Charleston and Kyle Canyon dread the thought of a wildland fire racing up their peaks and the Lost Cabin Fire about seven miles away from them Wednesday night came as a wake-up call.

Fire officials have taken the first step for an evacuation plan to protect the dry forested area from lessons they are learning from the uncontrolled blaze in Lovell Canyon.

Emergency officials met with residents on the mountain Wednesday night to outline plans should the fire reaches Mount Charleston and more populated areas.

"It's always in the back of your mind," Lane Rushmeyer, a Rainbow Canyon resident for 10 years. "There is no safe zone and there is no safe way out."

About 50 people met with federal, state and local fire and law enforcement agencies as officials laid out plans to handle a fire.

The American Red Cross of Southern Nevada is ready to set up a shelter for evacuees at Centennial and Cheyenne high schools, spokeswoman Trish Williamson said.

"If a fire jumps Kyle Canyon, we'll probably have to evacuate," Williamson said.

Mount Charleston Town Board Member Skip Mitchell said there are about 450 homes in the area. That doesn't include the thousands of visitors who drive the 35 miles from Las Vegas to enjoy the cooler summer air and winter snows.

For Melodye and Michael McGroarty the fire threat is all too real.

"We think about it every day," Michael said after seven years living in Rainbow Canyon.

If a forest fire began high in the mountains, officials said it would take up to five hours to begin a voluntary evacuation plan. Only Nevada's governor can order a mandatory evacuation.

It would take up to 12 hours to complete an evacuation, unless a wildfire started in the bottom of a canyon.

People worried about their pets, their families, their children and how they would reunite.

Battalion Chief Doug Lannon of the California Division of Forestry and Fire Protection said the road has to be closed or both lives and property will be lost.

In 1992 the Oakland Hills fire in northern California blazed up in terrain similar to the Spring Mountains, Lannon said. As frantic residents clogged the road down the hills, 8-foot-wide fire engines trying to push up the mountain became deadlocked. In that fire 35 people died and 3,500 homes were lost, he said.

Residents had suggestions of their own, from alerting neighbors through a telephone tree to posting lighted bulletin boards on the road to Mount Charleston. There are plans for everything from avalanche to forest fire.

Getting the word to residents is not easy. They have no local television channels and everything is fed to the mountain by satellite.

The Lost Cabin fire has riveted residents' attention to how vulnerable their mountaintop homes are to the whims of forest fires.

Fire Incident Commander Chuck Maner of San Diego said the flames burning Lovell Canyon seven air miles away are probably not going to reach Kyle Canyon this time.