Summer forecast increases fear of Kyle Canyon fires

Stephen Curran

Wednesday, June 26, 2002 | 11:05 a.m.

As wildfires continue to destroy homes throughout the Southwest, dry conditions in Nevada have the state facing its driest summer in 75 years, Bureau of Land Management officials said Tuesday.

Most threatened is the Kyle Canyon region northwest of Las Vegas, where water shortages have raised concern at the BLM. And as Independence Day draws closer, officials are cautioning residents and campers to take their celebrations into the city.

"We're real concerned with the Fourth of July coming up," said Steve McClintock, rural coordinator for the Clark County Fire Department. "We're trying to stress that there are great fireworks in town which are supervised. Let the professionals do it."

To combat the water shortage, BLM and fire department officials are warning area residents to curtail watering their lawns -- a practice many mistakenly believe will protect their homes from fire. The best thing to do, McClintock said, is to remove dry vegetation from around the home and any pine needles or leaves from the roof. Extensive watering only reduces the water supply, he said.

About 400 homes are located in the threatened area, a remote area that could be difficult to reach in an emergency, said John Jones, regional forester for the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

"The problem is that there's only one way in and one way out," he said.

In an effort to keep the homes near Kyle Canyon safe, the Nevada Division of Forestry and Clark County Fire Department have distributed pamphlets on how to keep rural homes safe from fire. Tips include how to build a new home that is safe and how to retrofit an existing home.

The tips take on added importance in a year in which Nevada has only received 4 percent of its average annual rainfall, Jones said.

"We live in the driest part of the driest state, and it's drier than normal," he said.

The warnings came on the same day as an announcement from the Department of Agriculture that the department is taking extraordinary measures to supplement a national shortage of firefighters. For the first time in history, the USDA and the departments of the Interior, Labor and Agriculture signed an agreement Tuesday to establish national standards for the National Interagency Joint Apprenticeship Program.

Officials hope the program will provide a pool of trained firefighters and fire managers to offset the more than 30 percent of the fire management work force the agencies expect to lose over the next five years.

But Nevada faces no such shortage, even as fires continue to burn in Colorado and Arizona, Bob Leinbach, spokesman for the Clark County Fire Department, said.

While those fires have drawn firefighters from surrounding states, including Nevada, Leinbach said there is a sufficient number of local reserves to keep a shortage from reaching a critical level.

Leinbach estimates that the department receives thousands of applications each year, many of whom are turned away. The flood of applicants simply reflects growth throughout the Las Vegas area, he said, and working for the fire department provides an opportunity for excitement as well as a career with a chance for advancement.

The excitement factor plays a role in most applicants' decision, but it is rarely the only one, as the physical and academic training required is strenuous.

"If it's just the adrenaline rush that draws them, they won't last," Leinbach said.

The National Interagency Joint Apprenticeship Program for Wildland Fire is funded by the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management and was originally established in 1990.

For more information on the program, visit the Department of Labor's website at www.doleta.gov/atels]bat/