23% containment reported in York fire battle
The wildfire burning in the desert along the California-Nevada state line about 40 miles south of the Las Vegas metropolitan area was about 125 square miles in size with close to a quarter of the blaze contained, officials announced Tuesday morning.
Because of an early Tuesday infrared mapping flight over the York Fire, officials were able to obtain data that showed its true size and how much of it has come under control, they said.
As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, according to a statement from the National Park Service posted on the federal government’s InciWeb site, the fire was 80,437 acres, which is about 125 square miles.
Another update was expected after 7 p.m. Tuesday, said Marc Peebles, a U.S. Forest Service spokesperson.
Roughly a tenth of the blaze, or about 8,288 acres, is burning near Searchlight on the Nevada side of the state line, in Clark County, the 435-square mile county that’s home to Las Vegas.
The fire crossed over from California into Nevada on Sunday, but federal authorities said Tuesday morning that the fire was moving away from the Nevada border.
Nearly one-quarter contained
About 23 percent of the fire was contained, officials said.
As has been the case since the fire started, the weather was guiding the fire’s behavior, with the winds and mostly dry, hot conditions acting as fuel for the fire while some of the rain in the desert also has aided containment efforts in some parts of the blaze.
Peebles said the southern portion of the fire got a “heavy dumping” of rain Tuesday, which helped. He also said firefighters in recent days have been seeing so-called fire whirls, which are essentially tornado-like columns of fire and smoke.
“I’ve been in the fire service for over 32 years and obviously they’re not as scary or intimidating to me or other firefighters, but they are spectacular-looking, for sure,” Peebles said.
Tuesday also saw a spike in humidity in the area because of some of the thunderstorms and rain that happened, said Matt Woods, a meteorologist with the Las Vegas forecast office of the National Weather Service.
“The increased humidity that has been around today has certainly helped limit the spread,” Woods said. “It’s not as dry as it usually is.”
The winds also weren’t as strong on Tuesday, which resulted in less of a smoky haze over the Las Vegas Valley on Tuesday compared with the haze on Monday, Woods said. But those winds could start to pick up again on Wednesday and Thursday, leading to more smoke over the valley.
Woods said there was a slight chance of rain Tuesday night, with about a 40 percent chance of precipitation on Wednesday morning.
Peebles said another infrared mapping flight wasn’t expected early Wednesday, but likely after several days.
The fire started on private land in the Mojave National Preserve in California around noon Friday, growing from about 46 square miles on Saturday to close to 110 square miles Sunday and about 120 acres by Monday morning.
Its cause so far undetermined, the fire was being fought by a total of 389 people as of Tuesday morning, officials said.
Having a go bag ready
Charlie Shrimplin, who lives in the Mohave National Preserve with partner Craig Genovese, said she was saddened to see the damage caused by the fire, both to the wildlife as well as to the trees and plant life in the desert.
After a tense weekend of watching the blaze, Shrimplin said Tuesday they were cautiously confident their property would be spared. Part of the tradeoff to living in the “splendid isolation” of the preserve is having a go bag ready in case they need to flee a wildfire, Shrimplin said.
“When the desert burns, one of the things I’ve noticed, it’s like Tim Burton came in and developed a set like ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ or something like that,” Shrimplin said. “It’s just barren and black.”
Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter. Contact Brett Clarkson at bclarkson@reviewjournal.com. Digital content producer Tony Garcia contributed to this report.
