Monsoonal moisture moving into the Mount Charleston area on Thursday and Friday should help slow the spread of the massive mountain wildfire, an official said Wednesday night.
A relieving bout of summer rain has prompted Clark County to downgrade an air-quality alert to an advisory. In a news release Thursday, Clark County spokesman Erik Pappa said the combination of moisture in the atmosphere and a change in directional flow has led to a decrease in smoke levels in the Las Vegas Valley caused by the wildfire on Mount Charleston.
Barry Becker looked forward to the weekends, when he’d drive up to Prospect Springs Ranch and unwind. As owner of the 40-acre mountainside pad, the 68-year-old businessman visited the ranch every Saturday to make sure the place looked nice.
Rodney Giles’ entire life is perilously nestled on Mount Charleston. Flames from a raging wildfire threaten to lick at his door daily. He's one of two people who didn't heed the mandatory evacuation that went into place on Independence Day. Giles, 63, isn’t leaving until those flames actually come knocking because if his cabin burns he’ll have nothing.
The Mount Charleston wildfire burned six structures Tuesday night in Prospect Ranch as the fire continued its path of destruction. After charring nearly 40 square miles of the mountain, the fire reached its first buildings in the Harris Springs area, burning one commercial building and five other structures, officials said.
Two deer nervously eyed a line of vehicles traveling down Mount Charleston and skittered away. They had been standing at the entrance to Rainbow subdivision, the cluster of cabins and A-frame homes on a winding road that had been threatened by wildfire just a day earlier.
Firefighters battling the wildfire engulfing more than 30 square miles of Mount Charleston faced a tough adversary Tuesday — a 20 mph southwest wind that was gusting to 30 mph.
The day started with eggs and sausage, a hearty breakfast to give the 800-some firefighters battling the Mount Charleston wildfire a calorie boost. Their Monday would be long: a 12-hour shift, plus a couple of hours for transportation.
For residents of the 400 homes that make up the Mount Charleston community, forest fires like the one currently burning on more than 15,000 acres there are disasters that can be prepared for but not entirely protected against.
The analytical work performed by fire scientists at the National Interagency Fire Center confirms what seems anecdotally evident: Wildfires are getting bigger — the average fire is now five times as large as it was in the 1980s — and these enormous conflagrations have a breathtaking facility to dance and grow. Unforeseen winds are swerving and turning on fire crews, and it’s no longer unusual for fires to double in size in a day.
Firefighters had a “break-even” kind of day Monday in battling the vast wildfire at Mount Charleston, getting some containment in some areas, losing ground in others, but so far managing to save every structure, according to an official in charge of the operation.
With the Mount Charleston wildfire burning through thousands of acres, smoke from the fire has prompted Clark County officials to declare an air quality warning through Sunday.
The estimated containment date – 11 days away and nearly three weeks from when the fire started – was included in an update from the Joint Information Center to area media.
Mount Charleston residents flooded into a town hall-style meeting Sunday hungry for information about the nation’s top-priority wildfire, which has chewed through 14,458 acres and threatens more than 500 structures. Since a lightning strike set the mountain ablaze on July 1 and 520 residents were told on July 4 they should evacuate their homes on the mountain, rumors have been spreading almost as fast as the fire.
The cost of fighting the fire that is threatening more than 500 structures on Mount Charleston has grown to $2.4 million, but officials indicated Sunday the effort was making headway. Officials with the Great Basin Incident Management team, which is directing firefighting efforts on Mount Charleston, said the fire grew by just 50 acres -- from 14,108 acres earlier in the day to 14,158 acres late Sunday afternoon.
A lightning strike to a tree sparked a fire in the Spring Mountains west of Las Vegas that has spread to about 1,100 acres, officials said Wednesday morning.
