Earth Changes and Global Warming
Temples of Angkor
Siem Reap
Phnom Penh
Ground Transportation
(see each city's link also)
River Transportation
(see each city's link also)
Hospitals, Clinics and Health Services Professionals
Western Union/Money Transfer Points
Travelogues
and Travel Articles
Earth Changes &
Global Warming
Real Estate/Properties
(For Rent - For Sale)
Government Offices
and Ministries
Telecommunications,
Post
and Internet Providers
*****
Charles B. Jones
Managing Editor
Cambodian Online
Information
Contact Information
Cambodian
Mobile:
012-247-125
International Mobile:
(855) 12-247-125
24-Aug-2005
Last Edited
Welcome to Cambodia's Portal to its mystery and charm!
As you will find, many pages are incomplete or under construction. We are however making every effort to keep this site as timely and informative as possible and always welcome your comments, feedback and observations.
Please enjoy what we all feel to be one of the most amazing places on earth...Cambodia!
Charles B. Jones
Editor
Cambodian Online
Earth
Changes
and
Global
Warming
Home Page
Driest conditions in 30 years spur 8,600-acre Sierra fire
Associated Press
July 16, 2002 07:30:00
TOPAZ LAKE, Nev. - Nearly 1,000 firefighters turned their focus Tuesday to the Sierra Nevada where bulldozers dug fire lines around a housing subdivision threatened by an 8,600-acre wildfire burning in the driest conditions in 30 years.
Some 985 firefighters, three air tankers and two Chinook helicopters from the National Air Guard were battling the blaze on the California-Nevada state line. Crew chiefs estimated the fire to be 30 percent contained late Tuesday afternoon, but more than 250 homes were threatened.
"The wind is the biggest concern," spokeswoman Laura Williams said from the Sierra Front Interagency Fire Dispatch Center in Minden, Nev.
"It is very low humidity. The soil moistures are at the lowest level they have been for this time of year since Nixon was president," she said.
A Type I fire management team from Oregon, the top priority federal firefighting team, was scheduled to take over control of the trio of fires called the Gate fire complex late Tuesday or early Wednesday. Officials said the timing would depend on how much winds strengthen and fan the flames through the dry juniper, sage brush and pinon pines in a rugged mountain area about 90 miles southeast of Reno.
"Hopefully the addition of the Type One team will get a good handle on it," fire spokesman Jack Stafford said late Tuesday. He said the fire was showing only marginal growth and firebreaks were being cut in inhabited areas.
"To date, we've only lost one little barn that belonged to California Fish & Game and one other out building, so I think they've done a marvelous job," he said.
The fire has been given a top priority among the scores of wildland blazes in the nation because of the number of homes nearby, said Mark Struble, a fire information officer from the Bureau of Land Management.
Crews on bulldozers dug a 2-mile trench around 50 homes in the Holbrook Highlands subdivision along U.S. Highway 395 just north of Topaz Lake.
"There's a big crescent around it and they laid retardant around that to bolster that line," Williams said. "They are digging in for big winds expected the next day or two."
"We have engines from all over the whole Sierra Nevada and some from the Central Valley."
Fire officials had estimated Monday the fire had burned more than 10,000 acres in the area south of Topaz Lake to Coleville and Walker, Calif. That was revised to 7,200 acres after a flyover late Monday, but fire officials said 1,400 acres more burned over night to reach about 8,600 acres by Tuesday.
"The problem is the fire doesn't always just move along the ground," Struble said.
"It can throw sparks and embers sometimes a half a mile or a mile out ahead. So the fire sort of leap frogs along. ... It is potentially a very explosive situation."
The area around Topaz Lodge hotel-casino also remained a concern.
"The fire line is within a half mile from there," Williams said.
A dozen fire trucks were lined up in the parking lot of the Topaz Lodge, facing a wall of flames inching down a foothill.
Ladders were lashed to the building and firefighters rolled hoses out on the lodge's wooden shake roof.
"It has been real scary," said Bob Cashell, the lodge co-owner and former Nevada lieutenant governor currently campaigning for mayor of Reno.
A 50-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 395 remained closed from Bridgeport, Calif., north to the Nevada-California state line, where the Topaz Lodge hotel-casino and hundreds of area residents voluntarily evacuated Monday.
Holbrook Junction and Holbrook Heights both were under voluntary evacuation notices. At least one fire engine was parked at every building within the fire's reach.
Paul Tucker of Topaz said the recommendation to leave his home came as no surprise. "It wasn't a question of whether. It was just a question of when," he said.
At its height, fire whorls - small tornadoes of flame - sent firefighters scrambling for cover.
The fire burned through power lines south of Lake Topaz, leaving residents without power or phones, including the firefighters' command post at the local high school.
Sierra Pacific Power company officials said it could be weeks before power is restored to the Coleville area but they were creating a temporary substation Tuesday with a mobile generator.
The fire was burning just northwest of last month's 22,750-acre Cannon fire near Walker, Calif., where three men died when their air tanker crashed.
Across the state, a 10,000-acre fire raged unchecked on the Nevada-Utah line 50 miles southeast of Ely.
Southern Nevada's first major fire had blackened 2,400 acres some 25 miles west of Las Vegas, though no structures were threatened. About 170 firefighters were battling the fire in rugged hills of pinon and juniper pine.
The demand for resources in the Sierra was keeping fire officials from assigning more equipment and personnel to a pair of wildfires growing in west-central Nevada.
About 90 firefighters were working the Ellsworth fire 50 miles southeast of Fallon, which had grown to 1,600 acres and was only 15 percent contained. Bulldozers dug lines around the Ellsworth historical site.
The Pony Express fire has burned 1,000 acres of pinon-juniper and sage brush in the Desatoya mountain range about 40 miles east of Fallon. That fire is 10 percent contained.
Both of those fires started Sunday with lightning strikes.
More than 130 firefighters helped bring containment to 80 percent on the 640-acre Belmont fire burning in eastern Nevada about 20 miles south of Jiggs.