Water authority may pay part of firefighting costs in Warm Springs blaze

The Southern Nevada Water Authority could end up paying at least some of the cost for fighting the July 1 wildfire that swept through the Warm Springs area, destroying several homes, historic buildings and hundreds of acres of dense palm groves.

Deputy General Manager Rick Holmes on Thursday said the water authority is in talks with federal, state and county officials over who should pay for the response, although it could take "weeks or months" to add up all the costs.

The water authority is insured, but a spokesman said it wasn't immediately clear how much would be covered and how much the agency would have to pay, if anything. The authority provides water to public water districts that supply Las Vegas Valley residents, who pay for this service.

The Moapa fire broke out on water authority property about 55 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

Investigators have not issued their final report, but the blaze appears to have been sparked by a truck driven by contract laborers the authority hired to trim palm trees and clear away dry brush. The work was meant to lower the risk of wildfires.

"It appears to be related to the fuels reduction work," said Bill Rinne, the authority's director of surface water resources. "This truly was an accidental fire."

Pushed by shifting winds, the intense blaze jumped from palm tree to palm tree.

It took 20 fire engines, an air tanker and more than 100 personnel to halt the spread, but not before more than 600 acres had burned, including the Warm Springs Ranch, a private recreational area for Mormons.

The 75-acre facility once owned by Howard Hughes included a former mansion known as the "Big House," a bath house, a spring-fed swimming pool and several campsites. All of it was destroyed, as was a private residence surrounded by palm trees adjacent to the water authority's property.

In 2007, the wholesale water supplier for the Las Vegas Valley used federal grant money to acquire 1,200 acres of old ranch and resort property in the Warm Springs area, northwest of the tiny town of Moapa.

Since then, the so-called Warm Springs Natural Area has been developed as protected habitat for the Moapa dace, a finger-length fish that has been under federal protection for more than 40 years.

The dace's entire natural habitat is confined within the natural area and the adjacent 117-acre Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

Rinne said the authority hired the contract crew earlier this year to strip thick skirts of fronds from the palm trees, which grow in dense groves around the natural springs and streams at the headwaters of the Muddy River.

Rinne said the fire seemed to burn less intensely or not at all in areas where the trees already had been cleaned up.

He said authority officials now plan to consult with land management experts to design a system of fire breaks by removing some of the remaining trees without harming the overall character of the area.

"We wouldn't want to eliminate all of them because we understand their importance and significance to the community," said water authority General Manager Pat Mulroy. "But we've got to put some breaks in there."

Wildlife officials won't know the fate of the dace until after a habitatwide count is conducted in mid-August, Rinne said, but the fire appears to have affected only one of three areas where the fish concentrate on the authority's land.

County Commissioner and authority board member Tom Collins said the fish looked fine to him when he toured the charred area in his pickup late last week.

"I did drive across the stream a couple times. There's plenty of guppies left," he said.

The last count in February showed a total population of 534 dace, roughly half of them on the authority's property. The other half were found on the refuge, which narrowly escaped the fire, thanks to the direction of the wind and the firefighters who kept the flames from crossing Warm Springs Road.

The response included crews from Clark County, the Nevada Division of Forestry and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The fire was still burning out of control when water authority spokesman J.C. Davis arrived on the scene. The intensity of the blaze surprised him.

"That thing was hot. It was a wall of flame," he said.

Only the salmon-colored sheets of fire retardant dropped from air seemed to make a dent, Davis said.

"Everything else was like spitting on a campfire," he said

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@review
journal.com or 702-383-0350.