1,500 evacuees return home

RENO -- About 1,500 evacuees were allowed home hours after a 25,000-acre wildfire burned into the Northern Nevada town of Winnemucca, but the danger to residents still was not over, fire officials said Sunday.

The wind-whipped blaze burned up to the backyards of at least two dozen homes Saturday in Winnemucca, and destroyed an electrical substation and five to seven outbuildings, authorities said.

Initial reports by officials that the blaze had damaged an unknown number of homes proved untrue after crews scoured the area, fire information officer Pete Jankowski said Sunday evening.

The fire also shut down Interstate 80, delayed Union Pacific and Amtrak trains and killed livestock. No injuries were reported.

"It was pretty hairy for quite a while and people thought they would go back to nothing," Humboldt County Undersheriff Curtiss Kull said. "It was a huge wall of flame coming at the homes. It's amazing that no homes were lost."

Residents from 600 to 700 homes in Winnemucca, about 170 miles east of Reno, were subject to a mandatory evacuation for about six hours ending late Saturday night, Kull said.

Some residents decided to stay and fight the fire themselves, while most relied on crews with engines to protect homes, the undersheriff said.

Jamie Thompson, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, said a 10-mile-long fire line that previously had been installed around much of the town played a major role in keeping damage to a minimum.

While crews made progress Sunday with no major problems, Jankowski said the risk to residents still exists.

"The weather will determine what happens with it," Jankowski said. "There's still a large area of fire and there's the potential for problems if we have the same erratic winds we had yesterday."

Winds were calmer Sunday, with gusts hitting only 20 mph compared with 40 mph the day before. The fire was 10 percent contained Sunday, but no estimate for full containment was available, Jankowski said.

The fire shut down the interstate off and on Saturday. It also delayed an eastbound Amtrak train by and six Union Pacific trains.

Since Friday afternoon, about two dozen lightning-caused wildfires had blackened about 200 square miles, or 130,000 acres, of rangeland across Northern Nevada.

One Nevada fire had scorched about 90 square miles, or 58,000 acres, about 25 miles west of Winnemucca and was 20 percent contained Sunday night.

Another blaze near Jackpot had blackened 78 square miles, or 50,000 acres, and was 15 percent contained.

Fire officials also reported progress on a string of blazes in Elko County in northeastern Nevada, including one near the Idaho border.

A blaze about five miles southwest of Carlin was fully contained Saturday night after burning 17 square miles, or 10,949 acres.

A 1,000-acre fire west of Elko was threatening a government facility under construction that will commemorate covered-wagon pioneers who crossed Nevada in the 19th century, BLM spokesman Mike Brown said.