MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Fire crews are making progress on a blaze just northwest of Reno, Nevada. About 15,000 people are still under go-now evacuation orders. Tens of thousands more are under less severe warnings. KUNR's Maria Palma has been covering the fire, and she's with us now. Good morning. Thanks so much for being with us.
MARIA PALMA, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So what do we know about how this all started?
PALMA: So the fire is called the Hawk Fire. It broke out Saturday in the foothills right behind a residential neighborhood about 13 miles northwest of downtown Reno. That day, there was a red-flag warning, so really dry conditions and strong winds. That whipped the fire up really fast. In one day, it went from 15 acres or so to 10,500. It expanded into other neighborhoods, a few valleys that are pretty open with homes, but also a lot of trails and vegetation. Definitely not densely populated, but still residential. Fire officials have said it was human-caused but didn't share a lot more detail. Here's Fire Chief Richard Edwards from Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District at a press conference Monday.
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RICHARD EDWARDS: We do know that the fire was human-caused. We do not know if it was intentional or unintentional. More than likely, this fire will be classified as undetermined.
MARTIN: So officials have said that 30 homes were destroyed. Is that number expected to grow?
PALMA: Yes. So fire officials said yesterday that they were able to send teams into some of these communities to do initial damage assessments. But they added that there are more businesses and homes affected, so they do expect that number to go up. Luckily, no deaths have been reported at this point, though there are a few injuries among firefighters and civilians.
There have been big power outages in parts of the city, impacting thousands of people. That's partly because the utility turned off power in some places to reduce fire risk and partly because poles were damaged. All the Reno schools were closed yesterday and will be closed today. And while firefighters have increased containment, a lot of people are still evacuated.
MARTIN: Now, you were - you had a chance to talk with some people who have been evacuated. What have you - what are you hearing from them?
PALMA: Yeah. So I spent some time yesterday at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, which is serving as a shelter for evacuees and is being run by the Red Cross. They say over 400 people were there Saturday, though the number has dropped quite a bit since then. One evacuee I spoke with was 78-year-old Linda Wooden. She lives in Lemmon Valley, and she evacuated Saturday after her sister called and told her she needed to go out. She says she's still worried about her home, but she doesn't know if it has burned. And she emphasized the most important thing is protecting people's lives.
LINDA WOODEN: Hey, it's a possession. It can be replaced. Lives can't, is what I'm saying. Lives are very precious.
PALMA: For her and many others, there's still a lot of uncertainty. They don't know when they will be able to return home.
MARTIN: You know, Maria, the whole West is having a very active fire season. But what about Reno?
PALMA: Yeah. Other fires started around here earlier in August. They were a bit further north, and they burned in less-populated areas than neighborhoods affected by this fire. But we did see people there evacuate, as well as livestock and horses.
MARTIN: That is KUNR's Maria Palma. Maria, thank you.
PALMA: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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