Andrea Shortsleeve, left, and Dylan Davis, firefighters with the Bureau of Land Management, put out hot spots Thursday in one of the burned patches of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. The fires closed the visitor center and the 13-mile scenic loop. Photo by John Locher.
Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson.
The acrid smell of scorched landscape lingered in Red Rock Canyon on Thursday as more than 100 firefighters mopped up the remains of a 1,500-acre wildfire in the popular national conservation area.
The fire burned much of the land within Red Rock's 13-mile scenic loop road, leaving hundred-acre swaths of blackened earth. Along nearby state Route 159, burned areas abut the concrete of the road.
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The fire, started by lightning, also disrupted travel plans for visitors to the site. Tourists who visited Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, some who had come from as far as England, couldn't drive along the Red Rock Scenic Loop Drive on Thursday because it was closed.
Bureau of Land Management officials said they weren't sure when they would reopen the loop.
The Nevada Highway Patrol reopened State Route 159 on Thursday. The roadway had been closed Wednesday night because of the fire threat.
By Thursday night, the fire was about 80 percent contained, but it wasn't expected to be fully contained until today or Saturday.
"With all the hot spots that we have, we still have to mop them up before we call the fire contained and controlled," BLM spokeswoman Hillerie Patton said.
Parts of the national conservation area will be open to the public today, but officials are pleading with visitors to be cautious.
Patton said there was no immediate danger from the fire. But she warned people to avoid walking in the fire-blackened portions of the conservation area because traipsing through a smoldering patch of ground could cause it to flare up.
An abundance of dry grass and shrubs in the conservation area provided plenty of fuel for the fire, but it was the 40-mph winds that kept changing direction that made the fire so difficult to contain, firefighters said.
Clint Gould, a firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service, said he was fighting the fire along its edge in the conservation area when the wind changed direction and the blaze "blew up on us." No one was hurt, though.
At one point, the wildfire swept over Route 159 and started a quarter-acre fire on the east side of the highway, but firefighters extinguished it before it could spread.
About 1.2 million people visit Red Rock each year, according to BLM officials. The scenic loop was closed, but the scenic overlook area was open and many visitors were taking photographs from there Thursday.
Among them was Melody Fabrizio, who surveyed the singed conservation area with her husband, Eric.
"It's heartbreaking," she said.
The couple live in Henderson, and Melody Fabrizio has visited Red Rock regularly for more than six years.
Their neighborhood is called Green Valley, but Red Rock "was the most green, beautiful place in the world," she said.
Also at the overlook on Thursday were Andy and Yvonne Wardle. They live in England but had read about Red Rock in tourist literature and decided to drive to it. They were surprised by the wildfire. Andy Wardle said he wasn't disappointed, however.
"We've never been through there (the loop), so we don't know what we're missing," he said.
Alan O'Neill, executive director of Outside Las Vegas Foundation, said wildfires are a beneficial part of nature because they ultimately promote growth.
"It may be a temporary nuisance to the tourists, but over the long term it's beneficial. I don't view it as a negative."
The Scenic Fire, as this week's blaze has been named, is the largest fire at Red Rock this year and one of the largest on record in the national conservation area, but at least it didn't threaten any structures.
A July 2005 fire that consumed 821 acres prompted the voluntary evacuations of about 25 homes in Calico Basin, on the eastern edge of the conservation area.
RENO -- A national command team and three of the top firefighting teams in the country joined the battle Thursday against wildfires that have blackened nearly 375 square miles of Nevada rangeland the past four days, threatening ranches, mines and wildlife habitat.
The fires are among the largest wildland blazes which have blackened more than 1 million acres nationally, or 1,563 square miles. That's slightly more than the land mass of Rhode Island.
The national command team was set up Thursday in the Elko Convention Center and will coordinate efforts with the three elite firefighting teams.
"I think all of our large fires are in good shape," Joe Ribar, commander of the national command team, said Thursday. "If we get through today's issues, we'll be on the downhill side."
Those issues include temperatures in the 80s, humidity in the teens and the ongoing threat of isolated thundershowers.
Fires touched off by dry lightning since Sunday had burned 240,000 acres in Nevada, including the Sheep fire 25 miles northeast of Battle Mountain in Lander County, which exploded to 130,000-plus acres and was 20 percent contained.
In Elko County, the 80,000-acre Amazon fire near Tuscarora, was 25 percent contained, while the 16,700-plus-acre Deer blaze near Jackpot was 90 percent contained.
No damage to homes or injuries were reported, but the fires continued to pose a threat to scattered ranches and mines as well as wildlife habitat, a fire information officer said.
