\uFEFFMARK WAITE / PVTBLM firefighters check their equipment before heading out on a call Friday afternoon. \uFEFFMARK WAITE / PVTFrom left, Ray Johnson, U.S. Forest Service Fire Prevention Officer, Kevin Olivier, BLM Fire Management Officer, John Foley, BLM fire operations supervisor and Judy Suing, from the USFS public affairs office, look over locations in the Spring Mountains. Advertisement

Firefighters at the interagency fire center east of Manse Road and Highway 160 were giving a tour of the station during an annual press conference Friday afternoon about the start of the wildland fire season when a call came in.

"Yellow up!" the commander shouted and the firefighters cut short their tour and suited up in their yellow shirts to answer a call for a car fire at Highway 160 and the Sandy Valley turnoff.

The fire was quickly put out, but it could have ignited brush just like carelessly tossed cigarettes, escaped campfires, fireworks, old ammunition and arsonists.

Moisture deficits in Nevada are expected to limit the production of vegetation that foster wild fires in the Great Basin region from June through August, according to the National Wildlife fire outlook, put out by the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. A robust monsoon in the Southwest should help mitigate fire potential by early July.

Active fire years typically have above normal winter rainfall, abundant grass and an above average snow pack, which hasn't occurred in the Great Basin this year, the agency states.

When he's pushed to make a prediction, Ray Johnson, fire prevention officer for the U.S. Forest Service said it will probably be an average year for wild land fires. The current risk level was downgraded recently from extreme to very high, due to the cloud cover, BLM Fire Operations Supervisor Kevin Olivier said. The threat level depends on the moisture in the brush, he said.

"There's a little more grass than usual. That may lend itself for a greater spread if we do have ignition," Johnson said. He remarked it was early in the season to upgrade all the way to an extreme fire danger.

The lower elevations are always dry, while vegetation at upper levels can vary, Johnson said.

Olivier said the BLM is at full staffing for fire fighting.

Besides the Pahrump station, he said the BLM has interagency fire stations in Red Rock Canyon and Logandale. They are equipped with a total of four fire engines between the three stations. Range off-road vehicles with 75 gallon water tanks and single engine air tankers are based in Mesquite and Jean that hold up to 800 gallons of fire retardant. An interagency helicopter is based out of the North Las Vegas Airport, he said.

The U.S. Forest Service has fire engines stationed in Mountain Springs, Kyle Canyon and Lee Canyon as well, Johnson said.

The Pahrump station is manned by three career, seasonal employees who worked the entire year the last two years, and two temporary seasonal employees who work six months or less at the fire station, for a total of five firefighters, Foley said. The Interagency Fire Station in Pahrump opened in 2003.

There have been 21 fires in the Southern Nevada BLM District so far this year, the largest being a four-acre fire in Bunkerville, just outside Mesquite, Foley said. Last year there were 108 fires that torched 374 acres. That's about average for Southern Nevada, he said. Last summer a fire that torched 100 acres on Mount Potosi closed Highway 160 to motorists during the morning commute from Pahrump to Las Vegas.

The last brutal summer for area firefighters was 2006, Olivier said, which followed an unusually wet winter in 2004-05.

"We do expect some increased activity due to the snow we had," Olivier said. "That sort of winter moisture gives us a little more grass-growth potential."

Law enforcement agencies will be out in force again before the Fourth of July weekend stopping people illegally hauling fireworks from Pahrump into Clark County and California. Foley said firefighters in April responded to a blaze on Highway 372 near the California state line that was caused by fireworks.

"There are safe and sane fireworks people buy in the city, but no fireworks of any kind are allowed on the public lands. People sometimes assume since they bought safe and sane fireworks they can take them to the public land but they can't," Johnson said.

Olivier said there has been a public education campaign trying to get people to clean up lots around their homes to provide defensible space in case of a fire. Johnson suggested moving firewood away from homes in the summer and cleaning out pine needles in gutters.

The fear of wildfires is still real even in the sparse desert vegetation of Pahrump, Olivier said. BLM firefighters don't respond to house fires in Pahrump, only brush fires.

"We've lost a lot of structures and outbuildings in Pahrump," Foley said.

BLM Public Information Officer Kirsten Cannon recommended owners not let overgrown trees block driveways that could be used by fire trucks and to move propane tanks away from houses.

Foley said half the wildland fires are caused by humans, half by lightning.

"That's why the fire restrictions are so important," he said.

Johnson said on the west side of the Spring Mountains, like Pahrump, most users of the national forest will drive up to Wheeler Pass, Wallace Canyon or Carpenter Canyon, where there are no developed campgrounds.

The desert has also become more vulnerable to fires due to invasive grasses like cheat grass and red brome that grow in fire damaged areas, Johnson said.