By SCOTT SONNER | Associated Press
June 27, 2006
RENO, Nev. (AP) - More than 1,000 firefighters were battling a series of lightning-sparked fires that had burned more than 50,000 acres across northern Nevada by Monday night, forcing evacuations, closing sections of two major highways and scorching part of the training grounds at a state fire academy.
In Arizona, meanwhile, a wildfire north of Grand Canyon National Park jumped the only paved highway leading to the canyon's remote North Rim, closing the road and marooning hundreds of tourists. The tourists were not in any danger, park officials said as the fire burned 30 miles from the park. Some of the tourists were escorted out of the park Monday night on a dirt road.
Already hampered by dry conditions, high temperatures and erratic winds, fire crews in Nevada scrambled to respond to more than a half dozen new fires around the Reno and Carson City area after another round of thunderstorms packing lightning rolled through the area.
More than two dozen fires raged from the heavily timbered western front of the Sierra Nevada near Reno to the sage- and grass-filled rangeland near Elko 300 miles to the east.
"We've got almost all of northeastern Nevada's fire-fighting resources on fires right now," said Gina Dingman, acting manager of the Elko Interagency Dispatch Center.
Evacuations were ordered in two rural communities near Elko and flames burned within one-quarter mile of homes about 15 miles northwest of Reno, but no injuries were reported and no homes were immediately threatened.
The biggest fire Monday afternoon surpassed 40,000 acres about 20 miles west of Elko near Carlin, where the University of Nevada Fire Science Academy is located along Interstate 80.
Flames burned 350 acres of the training grounds on the 426-acre campus and came within several hundred yards of the main academy building, said Denise Baclawski, the academy's executive director.
"We do a lot of real-life fire training but we never expected this," Baclawski said. "All night long we had staff members work to protect the facility."
Two sections of the interstate that were closed Sunday night due to fires were reopened Monday morning, but the Nevada Highway Patrol closed nearly the entire 20 mile stretch from Carlin to Elko again for several hours Monday afternoon before it reopened later in the day.
Fires also temporarily closed part of U.S. Highway 50 east of Carson City, where two new brush fires were burning over about 1,500 acres. Some residents were asked to leave their neighborhoods in the Mound House area, where as many as 300 homes and 50 commercial properties were threatened.
"We're actually waiting at the door to leave," said Bunny Love, an employee at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Mound House. "The girls all have their bags packed."
Northwest of Reno, a wildfire in the Sierra just across the California line tripled in size overnight to 1,500 acres on Monday, but it was estimated to be 50 percent contained late Monday night and some of the 250 firefighters assigned there were being transferred elsewhere.
But the new round of storms set off a series of fires in the rural valleys on the outskirts of northern Reno, where some residents were evacuating voluntarily and 120 firefighters were on the job.
Further north on U.S. Highway 395 near Susanville, Calif., an 800-acre fire forced temporary evacuations of dozens of residents but most were returning to their homes Monday night.
The Arizona fire had burned 58,300 acres of the Kaibab National Forest, 30 miles north of Grand Canyon National Park. Seventy-seven vehicles carrying stranded tourists were escorted out of Grand Canyon National Park on a dirt road.
An estimated 200 of the 950 stranded people drove for two hours on a forest road from Grand Canyon National Park to Fredonia, said park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge.
Crews planned to evaluate conditions Tuesday morning to determine whether it was safe to escort out the remaining people.
Near Sedona, Ariz., fire officials predicted containment Wednesday of a 4,200-acre fire that commanded attention last week. It was allocated a top priority in firefighting resources, despite its relatively small size, because of what was at stake, officials said _ the spectacular Oak Creek Canyon area, dotted with hundred of homes and resorts.
"There's bigger fires out there, but probably not with the potential for the economic damage that this one had," said Steve Raddatz, a member of the fire management team.
Elsewhere, crews continued to battle a 3,200-acre blaze burning a mile west of the northern New Mexico town of Gallina.
"Fire behavior today seems a lot less extreme; the winds are less erratic," fire information officer Miles Standish said Monday. "I think they're probably getting some good work done."
Earlier estimates put the Bear Paw Fire at 2,300 acres, but more accurate mapping showed it to be larger than first believed. Thunderstorms on Sunday brought wind that whipped the fire along, but it was followed by rain that dampened the fire's movement.
As of Monday, wildfires around the United States had blackened 3.3 million acres this year, compared to 1.2 million acres on average at this point in the fire season, the National Interagency Fire Center reported. However, much of this year's acreage resulted from huge grass fires in Texas and Oklahoma this spring, not from forest fires.
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/45592.html
Rocky Mountain Area Predictive Services
Southwest Monsoon Update
June 26, 2006
Current Situation/Short Term Forecast:
In the short-mid term a north-northwest flow dominates the RMA from Monday June 26th through the Wednesday June 28th. This pattern keeps the monsoon moisture plume well south of the region (Figure 1). During this period a low level upslope flow combined with passing upper disturbances results in isolated to widely scattered mainly wet thunderstorms in the southern Front Range into the south-central Colorado mountains, with isolated to widely scattered dry thunderstorms in western sections of Colorado and Wyoming.
Figure 1. GFS 500 mb pressure pattern (~18,000 ft msl) Monday 6/26/06, and 500 mb wind (red barb)
Outlook:
As high pressure migrates into western sections of Colorado and Wyoming on Thursday (June 29th) through Monday (July 3rd) expect warmer weather across the RMA, along with a continued trend of isolated to widely scattered mixed wet/dry thunderstorms. By Tuesday July 4th through the remainder of the week, monsoon moisture is forecast to work its way into south-central to southwest Colorado initially (Figure 2), with dry lightning on the fringe of the moisture in west-northwest Colorado into western Wyoming. Other than some lingering dry thunderstorms in central/eastern Wyoming into western South Dakota on Wednesday (July 5th), forecast charts show a trend of spreading the monsoon moisture and associated beneficial rains northward and eastward across most of Colorado, Wyoming, and western South Dakota during the period Wednesday (July 5th) through Sunday (July 9th). This outlook will be updated the week of July 2nd, but could be earlier if significant changes occur in this forecast pattern.
Figure 2. GFS 500 MB pressure pattern (~18,000 ft msl) Tuesday 7/4/06, and 500 mb wind (blue barb)
http://www.blm.gov/colorado/rmafwx/southwestmonsoon.htm