A fast-moving wildfire officials say was started by human activity has destroyed homes across northwest Reno, Nevada, forced roughly 90,000 people from their neighborhoods, and remained at zero containment, with no end in sight.
The Hawk Fire tore through the Peavine Peak area of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest over the weekend, growing to more than 23 square miles of rugged foothills ringed by homes and businesses near the California state line. By Sunday, August 23, the blaze had injured at least six people, three first responders and three civilians, knocked out power to tens of thousands of customers, closed portions of U.S. Route 395, and pushed the edge of a mandatory "GO NOW" evacuation zone to the boundary of the University of Nevada campus, where roughly 20,000 undergraduates had just moved into housing for the fall semester.
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency in Washoe County and mobilized the Nevada National Guard, deploying two helicopter crews for aerial firefighting and 60 troops to help police safeguard evacuated neighborhoods. Eight hundred fire personnel were on the ground. None of it was enough to stop the fire's advance.
Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam did not mince words Saturday night as shifting winds sent flames racing in multiple directions, jumping over fire trucks and cutting off crews trying to reach hot spots. CBS News reported that Balaam urged residents to leave immediately.
"Please get out if you can right now."
Balaam described the overnight chaos as "extremely confusing," with the fire changing direction fast enough to overwhelm the response. His office issued mandatory evacuation orders covering 42,000 residents and placed another 45,000 in an adjacent warning zone, roughly 90,000 people total in a city of just over 280,000. He said his office was also monitoring whether to evacuate the county jail.
Two hospitals evacuated patients. Schools shut down to keep roads clear for emergency vehicles. Washoe County emergency officials opened the Reno-Sparks Convention Center as a shelter, though pets were not allowed inside. Reno-Stead Airport closed to commercial flights but stayed open for firefighting and military aircraft. Reno-Tahoe International Airport, farther from the blaze, was unaffected.
Reno's casinos, for their part, offered discounted hotel rooms to evacuees, a small grace note in a weekend defined by loss.
The speed of the Hawk Fire's growth stunned residents who had watched it ignite as little more than a wisp of smoke. Tyler Duvall, a Reno resident who had gone camping over the weekend, said the fire was so small Saturday morning it was not a concern. By the next day, his house sat inside the evacuation zone.
"The wind really blew it up."
Cari Kieffer, a mother of four children ages 3 to 16, was watching her son's football game Saturday when she learned her home was in the evacuation zone. She and her husband raced back, but a fire-tracking app they relied on lagged behind the actual fire location. She kept looking outside as they gathered what they could carry.
"I kept looking outside and the flames just kept getting closer and closer every time I looked. I was like, we gotta go like now."
The family grabbed clothes, a Bible, wedding photos, and her mother's ashes. They forgot birth certificates and childhood photos. They drove to a friend's home, and had to evacuate again. By Saturday evening, they learned their house was gone. A video circulating on social media showed the property burned to the ground, nothing left standing but a scorched basketball hoop.
Kieffer woke Sunday morning and broke down.
"I woke up this morning and just started crying, all my kids, they lost everything. We lost all our stuff. Everything we own is gone."
Jaida Hargrove's grandfather, Rick Arrate, lived alone on Peavine Mountain. Firefighters had been working the slopes around his home, and for a while everyone thought the line would hold.
"They all thought it would be OK. And then, in about 30 minutes, the winds just changed and it came way too fast."
Arrate and the firefighters were forced off the mountain. All he managed to take with him was his two golden retrievers. He spent Saturday night at Hargrove's parents' home with no clear plan for what came next. Separate GoFundMe campaigns were set up for Arrate and the Kieffer family.
Ruby Delatorre had been at a concert Saturday night and returned to find her home inside the evacuation zone. She went back Sunday to retrieve what she could.
"Honestly, I thought it was like in a movie. I literally want to cry and go back for all my stuff. I just got what I thought I needed."
Fire officials said the Hawk Fire was "human-caused" but did not explain how they reached that conclusion or whether the ignition was intentional or accidental. The determination fits a grim pattern: all three large wildfires north of Reno in the past two weeks have been attributed to human activity. The two earlier blazes forced more than 13,000 residents from their homes before the Hawk Fire dwarfed them both.
Fifteen new fires started across Nevada on Saturday alone. Fox News reported that strong winds, low humidity, and dry vegetation created conditions that made the wind-driven fires nearly impossible to control as they raced into residential areas. Truckee Meadows Fire and Rescue Chief Richard Edwards described the challenge directly.
"The wind-driven fires move very rapidly into our residential areas, creating a lot of challenges for our firefighters to save homes and protect lives."
Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve, as Breitbart reported, warned residents not to hesitate if they received an evacuation order: "Structures have already been burned in this fire and your life is more important than a building."
Gov. Lombardo's emergency declaration laid out the stakes plainly. Just The News reported his full statement:
"I have declared a state of emergency in Washoe County as we respond to the Hawk Fire, which is spreading quickly and threatening homes and structures. Please heed all warnings from local officials, evacuate immediately if you are ordered to do so, and do not put yourself or first responders at risk."
By Sunday evening, the fire remained at zero containment. An official update warned that crews had observed "extreme fire behavior" as gusts pushed flames through dry brush and that the fire was expected to "continue to make moderate to high intensity runs in pockets of dense fuels" over the next 12 hours. Firefighters were working to keep the blaze from jumping U.S. Route 395, the major north-south highway that runs through the region. The fire had stayed within its footprint, but that footprint covered more than 23 square miles of terrain overlooking Reno and the neighboring city of Sparks.
Power outages dropped from roughly 60,000 customers on Saturday to nearly 10,000 by Sunday, progress, but cold comfort for families whose homes no longer existed. Officials still had not provided a specific count of structures damaged or destroyed, a gap CBS Reno affiliate KTVN noted in its coverage.
Ted Melden, a retired police officer and firefighter who had just moved to Reno from Chapin, South Carolina, earlier that month, had not been ordered to evacuate but kept bags packed. He had already lived through Hurricane Helene and a tornado back East.
"Just another natural disaster. You just have to roll with the flow and be ready."
The Hawk Fire was not the only mass-evacuation wildfire event in the West this month. Earlier in August, fires in the Spokane area of eastern Washington state forced 60,000 people from their homes, a scale now matched in Reno.
As of Sunday evening, several critical facts remained unknown. Officials did not say how many homes the Hawk Fire destroyed. They did not explain the basis for their "human-caused" finding or whether anyone faced criminal liability. The names of the two evacuated hospitals were not released. And no official offered a timeline for when the 42,000 residents under mandatory evacuation orders might return.
What is known: the fire started small, the wind turned, and families who thought they had time discovered they had minutes. Cari Kieffer grabbed her mother's ashes and left her children's baby photos behind. Rick Arrate walked off Peavine Mountain with two dogs and nothing else. The app that was supposed to track the fire could not keep up with it.
Three human-caused wildfires in two weeks, a city of 280,000 under siege, and still no one can say exactly how or why the Hawk Fire started. When the cause is human, the public deserves more than a label, it deserves an answer.
