Thanks to winter rain, Southern Nevada could see more wildfires this summer

CARSON CITY -- Heavier-than-normal winter rainfall has increased the likelihood of wild-land fires in Southern Nevada, and there will be fewer inmate crews to fight them this year because of spending cuts, the state forester said Thursday.

The fire season could start soon as temperatures begin to rise, state Forester Pete Anderson said.

"We are already starting to see it, a rapid green-up in Clark and Nye counties," Anderson told the Legislative Committee on Public Lands.

Thirteen inches of snow fell on Mount Charleston in one day earlier this month, while Las Vegas recorded 3.09 inches of rain in January and February, nearly twice the total of all of 2009.

But complicating matters this year will be a drop in qualified wild-land firefighters. Anderson said the state will have fewer fire inmate crews from state prisons because of budget cutbacks.

The state has three helicopters available for firefighting and the state forester said he is prepared to move them to Clark County as soon as they are needed.

In an interview, Anderson said the Nevada Division of Forestry relies on inmate firefighters, sometimes using as many as 1,000 a day.

With moves to cut state spending and release nonviolent inmates early, he does not expect to have as many inmate firefighters available this year.

But the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, which manage most federal lands in Nevada, will not reduce their firefighting crews in 2010.

Anderson has $2.5 million set aside in a fund to fight fires this year. That should be enough unless Nevada experiences an unusually bad fire season, he said.

Fighting fires cost the state $10 million during 2006, when 1,349,023 acres burned, and more than $7.6 million in 2007, when 890,414 acres burned.

Last year, wildfires burned 33,366 acres, one of the lowest totals in recent years.

"It is hard to predict what will happen," Anderson said. "They've got a pretty decent snowpack at Mount Charleston. I imagine the fire season will run late, but by July or August, everything will be dried out."

During Thursday's hearing, Nevada Fire Safety Council Director Andrew List said 45 homeowners at Mount Charleston last year thinned trees to create defensible space around their homes and reduce the risk of fires.

"We are getting there," List said. "It takes times to get people to redo their landscapes.

Noting that the worst fires are caused by lightning, Anderson said his agency's ability to knock down fires is seriously challenged on days when there are hundreds of lightning strikes that set off dozens of fires.

He is most proud that 93 percent of wild-land fires in 2009 were stopped almost immediately by crews that responded quickly.

State Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, complained Thursday that the federal government doesn't provide enough firefighting help to Nevada.

"We have been at the very bottom priority in getting equipment (to fight fires)," said Rhoads, adding that large timber fires in other states seem to get the most attention.

Rhoads said more federal fire aid would help protect the sage grouse, a small hen that lives in sagebrush that almost made it on the endangered or threatened species list this year.

Nevada lost a lot of its sage grouse habitat in wildlife fires in 1999 when about 2 million acres were charred. About 80,000 of the birds remain in the Silver State.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900.