By Amy Alonzo — When I wrote about the rising cost of recreating outdoors earlier this month, I focused on the increased entrance fees, reservations and permits now needed to access many of Nevada’s most popular public lands — measures that curb overcrowding but also unintentionally exclude some people from visiting certain parks and natural areas.
But there’s a cost of recreating I didn’t touch on: The increased risk of wildfires.
The ways wildfires start are innumerable — campfires that weren’t snuffed properly, target shooting, driving through dry grass, a carelessly tossed cigarette — but they almost always have one thing in common: humans.
Nationally, approximately 85 percent of all wildfires are human-caused. In many cases, those fires are sparked by people having fun outside.
The 2024 Davis Fire in South Reno was caused by an improperly extinguished fire at a regional park. The massive 2021 Caldor Fire, which forced evacuations of South Lake Tahoe, was determined to be caused by a bullet strike potentially tied to target shooters. Nevada’s largest wildfire, the 2018 Martin Fire outside Winnemucca that burned roughly 440,000 acres, was started by illegal fireworks.
As of early August, people had started 200 of Nevada’s wildfires so far this year, 115 had natural causes, and 85 were undetermined. Following national trends for fire causes, most blazes with undetermined causes are started by humans, according to Kacey KC, state forester and fire warden.
During the pandemic, the number of fires started by humans spiked.
“You had a lot of people recreating who’d never recreated before,” KC said.
And, as I reported in my recreation story, more people are recreating than ever in Nevada — state parks alone draw more than 4 million visitors annually.
So it makes sense that NV Energy is seeking to double the amount of wildfire insurance it carries from $500 million to $1 billion in case its equipment starts a blaze. State energy regulators agree it’s a good idea, as I recently reported, but they weren’t as sold on the utility’s request that ratepayers fund this increase over the next decade.
The utility was hoping to charge Northern Nevada residential customers about $2.40 more per month and Southern Nevada customers about $0.50 more a month starting this fall, but utility regulators are unconvinced. The utility, they said, failed to prove it was unable to obtain commercial insurance or to prepare a draft of its new, proposed policy ratepayers would fund.
NV Energy now has until mid-October to provide state energy regulators with details of its proposal — a month that used to signal the end of the wildfire season. But in an era of warming, drying climates and longer fire seasons, the National Interagency Fire Center is forecasting above normal fire danger across most of Nevada through the fall, and October hardly means the end of fire season anymore, KC said. Depending on snowfall and precipitation, fire season in Nevada can easily run into the new year.
That’s why she’s asking people to recreate responsibly and be mindful of fire danger.
“Any fire that doesn’t have to be, gives our firefighters rest,” she said. And, in the long run, fewer fires could inadvertently help keep Nevadans’ power bills lower.
— This story is used with permission of The Nevada Independent. Go here for updates to this and other Nevada Independent stories.
