Hunters can lessen complications by learning where Nevada is burning

The campfire long has played a central role in the home away from home known simply as deer camp or elk camp. Around it are weaved the tall tales that will grow even taller with time, stories of big bucks bagged, stories of even bigger bucks missed. But this year it looks like your stories should be told round the propane camp stove instead of the campfire.

As of Wednesday, 13 wildfires are burning across Nevada, from Mesquite to the Oregon and Idaho state lines. Although that is down from 15 earlier this week, those fires have burned more than 626,500 acres of wildlife habitat. Accounting for nearly 420,000 of those acres, the Holloway fire north of Winnemucca spans the Nevada-Oregon state line and is the largest in the country. Containment is estimated at less than 48 percent.

Of the 12 other fires still burning in Nevada, most are in hunt Areas 6 and 7 north of Elko, including the 56,664-acre Bull Run Complex fire. Fires also are burning northwest of Austin and near Caliente.

Just how the fires will affect Nevada hunters remains to be seen, but they could limit access to places you planned on hunting or setting up camp. You could save yourself some aggravation by learning the status of any fires actively burning in the units for which you have a tag.

A good place to start looking for fire-related information is the National Interagency Fire Center website: www.nifc.gov. There you will find a list of wildland fires actively burning across the country as well as those that have been recently extinguished.

The list is broken down by state, and some of the listings include a link that will take you to a map and a detailed status report that includes weather conditions and planned actions for firefighters.

You also will find information regarding any closures or limitations to public access.

Other information sources include the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and Nevada Division of Forestry. Each agency has offices scattered around the state and provides updated information and important links on their websites. By monitoring what’s happening on the ground in your hunt area, you can make the necessary adjustments in your travel and hunting plans.

Because of the extreme fire danger throughout the state, certain activities have been prohibited on federal and state lands. Among those is the traditional campfire as well as fires in wood stoves or involving charcoal briquettes, except within developed recreation sites. Portable stoves using gas or pressurized liquid fuel may be used.

The use of chain saws, generators or other motorized equipment that use internal combustion engines also is limited to developed sites, but they can be used only in an area at least 10 feet in diameter that has been cleared of all flammable materials. If you are in a campground and use a chain saw, you must have a shovel and a 2.5-pound fire extinguisher at the ready.

If you are a smoker, don’t light up in the outdoors unless you are in the confines of an enclosed vehicle or building, in a developed recreation site or while stopped in an area that is barren and clear of all flammable materials for at least 3 feet in all directions.

Because our wildlands are worth a little inconvenience, pull your chair to the old propane stove, break out the s’more fixins and tell a few tales. It’s not the fire we’ll remember, anyway.

Freelance writer Doug Nielsen is a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His “In the Outdoors” column, published Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDOW. Any opinions he states in his column are his own. He can be reached at intheoutdoorslv@
gmail.com.