Sisolak talks with students about climate change, fires
Gov. Steve Sisolak was joined by members of a Reno student climate action club Wednesday as he launched a new effort meant to inform Nevadans about the effects of climate change.
The Nevada Climate Series 2022, an informational campaign focused on increasing awareness of climate change impacts on the state, kicked off with a roundtable discussion attended by Caughlin Ranch Elementary School students and their parents.
“The idea is to bring awareness to how climate change impacts all of us, and then help Nevadans find resources that they need during an evacuation, a fire, whatever it might be,” Sisolak said.
Much of the roundtable discussion related to wildfires, an effect of climate change familiar to many of the students, all members of the school’s Caughlin Climate Action Collective club, including its organizer, Tilli Allen.
“The Pinehaven Fire came down, and it was the first fire I’ve ever had to evacuate for,” the sixth-grade student and former Caughlin Elementary School student said. “It burned down five houses at night, and it was very traumatizing for a lot of my classmates.”
Started by a power line in mid-November 2020, the fire damaged more than 20 structures and triggered the evacuation of 1,300 homes in southwest Reno.
More than 134,140 acres were burned by 610 fires across Nevada last year, according to officials.
Sisolak also announced the release of a wildfire preparation guide developed by the Living With Fire Program at the University of Nevada, Reno.
But wildfires aren’t the only impact of climate change the campaign will focus on. Information on air quality and water will be future components of the series, said Kristen Averyt, senior climate adviser with the governor’s office.
“It’s really about how climate change impacts our communities now, here and today,” she said. “It’s about how our air quality is changing, how the nature of wildfires changing, our water resources. And some of these in the past, they weren’t such an issue for some for some communities, but now they’re becoming more of an issue. We need to build awareness around that.”
Contact Taylor R. Avery at TAvery@reviewjournal.com. Follow @travery98 on Twitter.
An earlier version of this story misstated the last name of Tilli Allen.