Reno Wildfire Forces Nearly 90,000 to Flee Nevada
The uncontrolled Hawk Fire near Reno, Nevada, grew to 60 square kilometers in a single day with zero percent containment, nearly 90,000 people evacuated and at least six injured.
Nevada declared a state of emergency after an uncontrolled wildfire ballooned in just two days into one of the largest evacuations of the summer in the western United States. The blaze, named the Hawk Fire, broke out on Saturday in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, just outside Reno, and exploded in size by Sunday, pushing authorities to order tens of thousands of people out of their homes.
The fire tore through the Peavine Peak area, inside the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, a stretch of hilly terrain toward California lined with neighborhoods and businesses. The first reports Sunday night put the burned area at 13,000 acres. That figure climbed past 15,000 acres, and the latest count, more than 23 square miles, or roughly 60 square kilometers, shows how far the fire spread in just 24 hours. By Monday morning it was still at zero percent containment.
An emergency “get out now” evacuation order went out to about 42,000 residents, while another 45,000 people fell inside a neighboring warning zone, putting roughly 90,000 people in the fire’s path in total. At least six people were injured, three emergency responders and three civilians, according to Washoe County officials. A preliminary investigation found the fire was human-caused, though authorities have not said whether it was arson or an accident.
Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam urged residents of threatened neighborhoods to leave without delay.
“Please get out if you can, right now,” Balaam said in a call to residents.
Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency for Washoe County and activated the Nevada National Guard, which sent two helicopter crews to support aerial firefighting along with 60 soldiers assigned to secure evacuated neighborhoods. About 800 firefighters were working the fire on the ground, according to the latest figures.
Multiple homes burned in northwest Reno, though the exact number of structures destroyed is not yet known. Crews on the ground reported what is known as extreme fire behavior on Sunday night, as strengthening winds drove the flames through dry brush faster than firefighters could keep pace with.
Basic services in the region also took a hit. Nearly 10,000 customers were left without power in Washoe County on Sunday, after outages had reached as many as 60,000 the day before. A stretch of U.S. Route 395, the main north-south highway through that part of Nevada, was shut down because of the fire, and two hospitals evacuated their patients. The University of Nevada, Reno, where roughly 20,000 students had just moved into dorms this past weekend, sat just outside the evacuation zone on Sunday, while the sheriff’s office was also watching whether the county jail would need to be evacuated.
Among those evacuated is Kari Kiefer, a Reno resident whose home, she said, burned to the ground. She described the final minutes before she fled.
“I kept looking outside, and every time I looked, the flames were closer and closer,” Kiefer said after evacuating.
Why is the fire spreading so fast?
Months of dry weather and a record-low snowpack across the American West last winter left the ground primed for fast-moving fire, and shifting, strengthening winds are pushing the flames toward populated areas. On Saturday alone, 15 new fires were reported across Nevada. Earlier this month, a wildfire in Washington state forced the evacuation of 60,000 people in the Spokane area, while three separate fires north of Reno had already driven more than 13,000 residents from their homes.
Officials warn the Hawk Fire will stay unpredictable over the next 12 hours, since wind direction and strength are shifting by the hour and no part of the containment line has been secured yet.
