Officials in Washoe County, Nevada, held a briefing to update residents on several wildfires that crews are battling in the area, with the largest, known as the Bug Fire, potentially covering more than 70,000 acres. Authorities urged people to check the county's emergency website for road closure and emergency information, and repeatedly asked the community to support the firefighters and other professionals working to bring the blazes under control.
Investigators said both major fires appear to have been started by people. The Bug Fire, which is being handled by CAL FIRE, was determined to be human-caused, information that was released a couple of days ago, while the separate Stallion Fire has also been described as human-caused. Officials indicated they are pursuing leads and referred to a suspect in connection with the cause, asking anyone who sees something suspicious to report it so that every lead can be followed up.
The fires have forced large numbers of people from their homes. Officials estimated that about 10,000 residents had already been evacuated before the Palomino area was added to the evacuation zone, and that roughly 5,200 people remain displaced. Once the Palomino Valley residents are counted, the total number of people forced out is thought to be closer to 13,000 or 14,000, underlining the scale of the disruption across the county.
Authorities said they could not yet give an exact number of homes destroyed, explaining that damage assessment teams were out canvassing the burn area to establish parcel numbers and identify registered owners. Four online fundraising campaigns have already been set up for families who lost their homes. Officials said they were beginning the difficult process of notifying owners, working through the emergency operations center and expecting to reach many residents by phone since they are not at their properties.
Firefighters singled out the northeastern edge of the Bug Fire as their biggest immediate challenge. Crews said the Dogskin Mountain Range is going to pose a huge problem, and that a priority is to keep the fire from continuing north along Winnemucca Ranch Road. Containing that flank is seen as key to preventing the blaze from spreading into new terrain and threatening additional communities in the days ahead.
Resources are stretched thin, with officials noting there are only about 100 firefighters for every 30,000 acres of these fires, a vast amount of ground to patrol and cover. Weather was flagged as a serious risk, because outflow winds from thunderstorms could push the fire in a direction crews were not expecting. On the Stallion Fire in particular, those same thunderstorm outflows on the western side could drive the flames into Palomino Valley.
At the same time, officials said a change in the weather could bring relief, describing rain and higher humidity as welcome. Moisture would make the finer fuels, such as grasses, less likely to ignite, slow the fire's progression and make it easier for crews to attack the flanks rather than chase ahead of the flames. For now the southern part of the Bug Fire is holding, though residents still inside the evacuation zone are anxious about when they will be allowed back to check on their homes.
