Firefighters make progress holding wildfire in Reno area, where thousands have been urged to flee

By Maria Aguilar Prieto, Hanna Park and Martin Goillandeau, CNN

Reno, Nevada (CNN) — Firefighters have made progress holding a wildfire threatening neighborhoods around Reno, fire officials said Monday morning, hours after officials urged tens of thousands of people and canceled Monday school classes for many in the area.

Still, high winds could worsen the situation later in the day and the week.

The uncontained Hawk Fire, which started Saturday and has burned some 15,000 acres just northwest of Reno, had been advancing Sunday down a hillside toward residential neighborhoods near the city, one of the latest endangered communities in a destructive fire season that has scorched thousands of acres and forced the evacuations of entire towns across the Southwest.

Fire behavior has recently been less extreme than anticipated in some areas, allowing crews to hold established lines and reposition resources to help suppression efforts, officials said Monday morning.

Still, the fire is expected to “continue making moderate- to high-intensity runs” where grass and brush are dense, and breezy conditions “are expected to continue supporting active fire behavior” into Wednesday, officials said.

Around 87,000 people in parts of Reno and Nevada’s Washoe County – just under a fifth of the county’s population of 500,000 – were urged over the weekend to evacuate, and at least two medical centers have evacuated patients. Assessments are underway to determine how many homes and other structures in the area have already been destroyed, officials said.

The fire is burning just miles from the Nevada-California state line, prompting officials in both states to monitor it closely. Nevada’s governor declared an emergency in Washoe County, which includes Reno and parts of Lake Tahoe, and activated the Nevada National Guard.

“The #HawkFire is still a rapidly evolving situation. Stay vigilant and keep yourself informed if you are in the affected areas,” Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo wrote Sunday on X.

Cari Kieffer saw a video posted on social media that showed her house on Reno’s outskirts had burned down, with only a scorched basketball hoop still standing, she told The Associated Press on Sunday.

“I woke up this morning and just started crying – all my kids, they lost everything,” Kieffer told the AP. “We lost all our stuff. Everything we own is gone.”

The fire near Reno – a city of about 280,000 people roughly 350 miles northwest of Las Vegas – is human-caused, officials have said, without saying how it started or whether it was intentionally set. Winds fueled the flames over the weekend.

“We saw wind gusts in excess of 40 miles an hour that allowed that fire to … cover an area of almost 6 miles in less than 24 hours,” Chief Richard Edwards with the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District told CNN Monday morning.

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Firefighters face more challenging weather that could worsen the fire this week, with increasingly gusty winds and dry, hot conditions ahead.

Six people have been injured, including three civilians and three first responders, said Shane Akerson of the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District. None of the injuries are life-threatening, Reno Fire Chief David Cochran told CNN’s Erica Hill on Sunday.

There is no indication the fire was intentionally set, but the specific cause remains under investigation, Cochran told CNN.

As of Sunday afternoon, 42,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders, said Akerson, one of three unified incident commanders, in a news conference. An additional 45,000 people were in yellow evacuation warning zones that should be prepared to leave, according to Akerson.

Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam urged residents in the yellow zones to evacuate early if possible to avoid potential traffic jams leaving the heavily populated area.

As of Monday afternoon, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office said evacuations in the Somersett area had been downgraded from red, “evacuate now” status to yellow, “get set to evacuate,” condition.

Road closures in the area were also lifted, though residents were encouraged to stay aware as the situation evolves.

County school district cancels Monday classes for nearly all schools

The evacuation zone had reached the edge of the University of Nevada campus as of Sunday evening. University officials said the campus was safe and classes would happen as scheduled Monday, though an evacuation plan is in place in case conditions change, according to an online notice.

Washoe County School District announced all classes, events and activities would be canceled on Monday at nearly all schools in the district.

Northwest Specialty Hospital, in the evacuation warning area, had started evacuating patients due to the nearby wildfire, according to a news release. The hospital is working with emergency responders to close the facility and notifying families of affected patients.

“The safety and well-being of our rehabilitation and behavioral health patients and staff remain the highest priority and we are evacuating out of an abundance of caution,” the hospital said in a statement.

The emergency room at North Valleys, an extension of Northern Nevada Medical Center, also temporarily closed because of a mandated evacuation due to the Hawk Fire, it said in a release.

More than 100 people displaced by the fire were gathered inside one makeshift shelter CNN visited as Red Cross volunteers provided them with food, water, and a place to sleep.

The main floor of the venue, which typically hosts conventions and other events in Reno, is now lined wall to wall with cots, including a cordoned off section where local medical volunteers are on hand to help those who might need care.

Numerous people were seen resting on the cots, including what appeared to be parents curled up with young children and some people embracing anxious pets.

One man CNN spoke with said he came to the shelter with only the clothes he was wearing after receiving an urgent warning from authorities to quickly evacuate.

An elderly woman with a cane walking her distraught dog outside the shelter said she was also told to evacuate Sunday due to fast moving fire conditions. While she, her family and her dog were able to safely relocate to the shelter, she said she worries about the fate of her livestock.

The wildfire grew rapidly Saturday, driven by gusty winds, low humidity and dry brush. About 1,000 personnel have been battling the blaze, officials said, but the high winds have complicated efforts to contain it.

Temperatures and winds typically drop overnight in Nevada, giving wildfires a chance to settle and firefighters an opportunity to contain the blaze, according to Cochran. But the Hawk Fire has been difficult to contain because neither temperatures nor winds eased Saturday night like they usually do, Cochran said Sunday.

“It just makes it hard to get your arms around a fire of this size and this magnitude,” he said.

Around 9,600 utility customers were without power in Washoe County as of late Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.

Kieffer, whose home outside Reno was destroyed, had rushed home from her son’s football game Saturday to save their dogs and whatever possessions they could grab after learning their home was in an evacuation zone, she told the AP.

“I kept looking outside and the flames just kept getting closer and closer every time I looked,” Kieffer told the AP. “I was like, ‘We gotta go like now.’”

The fire was so small Saturday morning that Tyler Duvall, who went camping over the weekend, wasn’t worried about it, he told the AP. But by the next day, his house was in the evacuation zone.

“The wind really blew it up,” Duvall said.

After returning from a weekend hunting trip, David Barb found he lost his taxidermy shop, but his house nearby appeared to have been spared thanks to workers with a landscaping company who cut a fire break, he said. His wife was home when the fire started on the other side of the mountain and later evacuated to a friend’s house.

“I’m kind of devastated, but thank God everyone’s safe,” he said Sunday, according to the AP.

Ken McNeil commended the efforts of firefighters, who are using airtankers to douse the flames. “I think they’re doing a great job. That’s an inaccessible area,” McNeil told CNN affiliate KTVN. “They’re using a lot of aircraft, and that’s what you have to do to fight this fire.”

Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve told CNN she’s grateful for all of the support the city has received from both federal and state partners.

“It’s just been all hands on deck. Everyone has been working together with ‘what do you need? What do you need?’” Schieve said Sunday.

“The wonderful thing is we all come together in a big way,” she added.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday his team was keeping track of the situation near the Nevada-California state line.

“We’re closely monitoring the #HawkFire across the Tahoe region and Nevada, with state and local partners deployed and coordinating on the ground and in the air,” he said on X. “Residents in impacted areas should continue following guidance from local emergency officials.”

Firefighters face an uphill battle against gusty winds and hot and dry conditions much of this week.

Wind gusts between 20 to 25 mph on Monday afternoon will be the lowest of the week. Stronger winds are expected in the coming days, with gusts up to 35 mph expected, especially Wednesday through Saturday. Wind-prone areas could see even higher gusts to 40 mph.

Poor air quality will also be a concern, especially when calmer winds in the morning allow smoke to settle closer to the ground.

This story has been updated with additional information

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CNN’s Josh Campbell contributed to this report from Reno. CNN’s Avni Trivedi and Farida Elsebai, and CNN Meteorologists Tyler Ory and Chris Dolce, also contributed to this report.