Fires blaze on Southern Nevada public lands

Monday, Aug. 1, 2005 | 10:57 a.m.

Lightning sparked five new wildfires that burned thousands of acres of dry brush and grasses on public lands in Southern Nevada this weekend, weather and fire officials said.

The National Weather Service is predicting the region will see plenty more lightning through this week, but it will also come with rains heavy enough to cause flash flooding in the Las Vegas Valley.

Most of the storms over the weekend, however, missed the valley, sweeping over the surrounding mountains and Lake Mead and Lake Mohave, Weather Service meteorologist Jon Adair said.

The storms also generated lightning in some areas while not producing significant rainfall, and that's how the wildfires erupted. "Dry lightning," as it called, was also the cause of the wildfires that scorched Southern Nevada in late June and early July.

One of the fires from this weekend is being called the Vegas Fire. As of this morning it had burned an estimated 4,000 acres north of Las Vegas in the Gass Peak area on the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, Dick Birger of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said. Lightning started the fire on Friday, and it is burning in pinion pine, juniper and black brush, Birger said.

"Often what happens is we get a lightning strike and we won't see any smoke for a day or two," Birger said. Daytime heating helps the flames. "Then away they go," he said.

Three single-engine air tankers applied foam and retardant on the fire during the weekend, but it has yet to be contained, Birger said.

The 1,500-acre Sheep Fire near the Clark and Lincoln county border in the Sheep Mountain range north of Las Vegas is the second largest ongoing fire in Southern Nevada. It is burning Joshua trees and black brush, but was 50 percent contained as of early this morning, Birger said.

It, too, was sparked by lightning, Birger said.

The 500-acre Meadows fire started Friday from unknown causes and was burning on the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. The fire burned about 22 miles northwest of Pahrump and was expected to be contained by today, authorities said.

Smokejumpers on Sunday battled the 100-acre Virgin Fire near the Arizona state line on Bureau of Land Management property. It was expected to be contained today.

A 25-acre fire on Highway 157, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, was doused by rain after two thunderstorms merged over the Spring Mountains, west of Las Vegas, and firefighters were monitoring it this morning but not expecting it to amount to much.