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Fire Chief Matt: county saw 72 wildland fires; multiple large incidents active
Summary
Fire Chief Matt told the board the county has seen an upward trend in wildland fires, reporting 72 confirmed fires as of Aug. 23 and several large active incidents; he said local staffing is preserved when crews deploy and that mutual-aid deployments pay overtime.
Fire Chief Matt provided a status update on wildland-fire activity, saying, “As of 08/23 when I did this there were 72 wildland fires confirmed wildland fires within the county.” He told the board the largest recent incidents included a roughly 300-acre fire and a separate 333-acre blaze that was not fully contained, and that he planned to check on a roughly 500-acre fire on Red House Ranch Road after the meeting.
Matt said the department has sent resources across the Western U.S. this season to build qualifications and experience for local crews but emphasized the department’s staffing policy at home: “But we will never sacrifice, not having staffing here to send people somewhere else... We always make sure that we have our backyard covered first.” He said most deployments are reimbursed by the incident that requests mutual aid, which typically covers overtime costs for deployed personnel.
The update framed both immediate incident response and longer-term prevention goals. The chief noted smoke visible locally was coming partly from the Tuscarora fire and largely from a fire outside Reno driven by regional weather patterns. The board did not take new formal action on incident strategy during this meeting.
