The Hawk Fire northwest of Reno and north of Lake Tahoe ignited dry fuel mid-day on August 22 amid red flag warnings with wind gusts up to 40 mph. Within hours the wildfire exploded to thousands of acres with ash, smoke, and flames encompassing sage-covered hills in northern Nevada’s densely populated areas. This is the third of several major wildfires in northern Nevada in the past weeks. The Bug and Stallion wildfires had already strained resources.
Meanwhile, tourists and day visitors to the Reno-Tahoe area continued to enjoy their weekend with some making their way on ebike rentals to Tahoe’s East Shore Trail and to nearby beaches. Columns of smoke appeared above dense pine-covered forests from the Tahoe Rim Trail, which lies 20-30 miles south of Reno.
Early emergency management systems prove inadequate
Just after 6:00 pm on Saturday, with dinner preparations under way, more than 60,000 lost power. Cell services quickly overloaded. Alerts stopped arriving. An eerie quiet settled over the region. Pine trees danced in the strong winds. The only sound was the spotty distant firing of a few generators launching. Neighbors in Washoe Tahoe’s Mill Creek subdivision walked outside to compare notes as the sun set with no power and no understanding of how the winds would shift in the coming hours. Most people in neighborhoods around the greater Reno-Tahoe area were in the dark without a good understanding of which direction might be safest to evacuate if the fire embers made their way into surrounding forests. The posted red flag warning wasn’t due to expire until 11:00 pm.
Just after midnight the power lurched back on for a portion of the Reno-Tahoe area. NV Energy sent out an email warning of additional “pro-active Emergency De-Energization” noting that “because wildfire conditions are dynamic, we are unable to provide a reliable restoration time during emergency de-energization.” It suggested that customers look to Washoe County for information…