Nevada missed worst of West’s wildfire season
By Sean Whaley, Las Vegas Review-Journal
CARSON CITY — Wildland fires don’t discriminate by geography, but due in part to some help from Mother Nature and just plain old luck Nevada has so far avoided the carnage seen elsewhere out West this summer.
For the season to date there have been 501 fires that have burned 42,153 acres in the Silver State, said Mike Klug with the Nevada Division of Forestry. Lightning caused 326 of the blazes while human activities accounted for the remainder.
The state saw 59,252 acres burned in 2014 and 162,841 acres burned in 2013, which was significant for Southern Nevada because of the Carpenter 1 fire. Nearly 30,000 acres of the Mount Charleston area burned in that fire in July 2013.
By comparison, nearly 1.9 million acres burned in Nevada in 1999, a record year for wildfires.
