Halting the progression of the Davis Fire was akin to stopping the onslaught of charging military formation.
After the wildfire raged through Washoe Valley, destroying 14 structures, a catastrophic weather event, described by the National Weather Service as PDS (“Particularly Dangerous Situation,” a step above Red Flag), moved into Northern Nevada on Wednesday bringing single-digit humidity and sustained winds of 40 mph.
Stewart Turner, a fire behavior analyst with Southwest Area Incident Management Team 1, predicted the Davis Fire would jump 3-7 miles in a 24-hour period, with it already knocking on the doorstep of residential neighborhoods situated in southwest Reno.
In two days, the fire hadn’t moved — the fire line held.
“By the hard work of those firefighters…it saved the day up there,” Turner said at a press conference two days later on Thursday. “No growth experienced. It wasn’t luck. It wasn’t the weather change; it was the hard work of those firefighters. That’s all it was.”
That hard work helped prevent the fire’s movement, even in the face of wind gusts that exceeded 60 mph. along the Sierra Crest. Today, firefighters are cautiously optimistic with more favorable weather forecast and containment now at 56 percent, as of Friday afternoon, but there is still work to be done, officials said. The fire had burned through 6,000 acres as of Friday.
The Southwest Area Incident Management Team 1, a federal Type 1 incident management team, assumed management of the fire Monday evening, two days after the fire started Saturday afternoon. Up until that point, several local and state agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District, Nevada Division of Forestry and the Nevada National Guard battled the fire and were in need of federal assistance.
The Nevada Army National Guard activated Sunday morning with Black Hawk helicopters and a hand crew team, fortuitously trained last month, to assist state forestry.
So far, Nevada Army Guard Aviation dropped a total of 246 Bambi buckets, about 200,000 gallons of water on the fire. The crews remain activated fighting fires Friday.
A hand crew team of Nevada Guardsmen also assisted. The team underwent training with NDF in August, only two weeks before the fire broke out in Washoe Valley. This effort proved tough as many of the Guardsmen worked 14-16 hour shifts each day throughout the week and remained on orders as of Friday assisting the Incident Command Team and NDF.
With evacuations, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office requested 100 Nevada Guardsmen to work security missions for the fire to safeguard neighborhoods and enforce road closures. That activation remains in effect.
The total activation amounted to 140 Nevada Guardsmen. Units involved: the 137th Military Police Company, the 150th Support Maintenance Company, 1859th Truck Company, 422nd Signal Battalion and Airmen with the 152nd Security Forces Squadron.
“Readiness is our number one priority in the Nevada National Guard—readiness to fight our nation’s wars and defend the homeland,” said Maj. Gen. Ondra Berry, Nevada adjutant General. “The response to this natural disaster not only
