As wildfires worsen, Nevada seeks to join compacts as another 'tool in the toolbox'
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As ‘70s R&B icon Bill Withers said, “We all need somebody to lean on.” Nevada’s state agency in charge of fighting fires agrees.
That’s why Nevada Division of Forestry’s (NDF) leadership is looking to join not one but two interstate wildfire compacts — agreements that let states more easily transfer resources across state lines during emergencies.
Without a compact, Nevada is involved in a set of complicated agreements with individual states for wildfire assistance — described by Nevada State Forester and Fire Warden Kacey KC as a “web of agreements that’s … astronomical.”
A bill being introduced this session could streamline that process. Last week, KC and Sen. Julie Pazina (D-Las Vegas) presented SB19 to lawmakers. The bill would allow the state to join two firefighting compacts:
- The Great Plains Compact, comprising Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Arizona and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan;
- and the Northwest Compact, comprising Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and multiple Canadian provinces.
“The whole purpose for asking to get into the compacts is for efficiency of operations … and the speed of response assets in or out of state,” KC told The Nevada Independent after the Thursday hearing. “It’s efficiency and it’s speed, and that's important when you’re looking at the first 24 hours of not trying to get a fire to go further.”
One of just three states not in a compact
Congress authorized states to enter wildfire compacts as far back as the 1950s.
States and various Canadian territories and provinces have since clustered together to form eight firefighting compacts across the United States and Canada. All but a handful of states prior to 2024 (California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Utah) opted to join.
“I don’t know exactly why [Nevada didn’t join],” KC told lawmakers.
But as wildfires have grown larger and more costly, some holdout states have converted.
In the wake of the devastating 2023 wildfire in Maui’s Lahaina area, Hawaii joined the Northwest Compact. Arizona joined the Great Plains Compact last year. Now, only California, Utah and Nevada are not legislatively authorized to join compacts, although all of the states are looking to join at least one compact, KC said.
Joining either compact will allow for faster state-to-state movement of resources, KC told lawmakers, as well as faster repayment for services — joining both compacts will allow Nevada to have access to more resources because of differences in the way they operate.
In the Northwest Compact, states can only share resources with states within the compact; in the Great Plains Compact, states can share resources outside of the compact.
“We’re going to be a bridge,” KC said.
If the bill passes and is signed by Gov. Joe Lombardo, he can then write to the compacts to request to join.
Talking with The Indy, KC didn’t have an estimate of how many resources go in and out of Nevada each year — that depends on the size and number of fires in and out of the state, which can vary wildly year-to-year.
But she cited the September Davis Fire that threatened South Reno as a reason to encourage interstate partnerships. Aircraft to battle the blaze came from California, a state that Nevada has a separate, interstate compact with, and additional aircraft were routed from the Pacific Northwest through a federal contract.
“It’s really important to have all the tools in the toolbox, and this is another tool for movement,” she told The Indy.
Federal fire funding frozen
Nevada’s push to join an interstate compact comes as wildfire fighting resources nationwide are in turmoil.
About 2,000 U.S. Forest Service probationary employees were laid off earlier this month, including those that do fuels reduction work such as removing brush, thinning trees and managing prescribed burns.
Funding has also been suspended for approximately $3 billion in hazardous fuels reduction programs across the West. The halting of some of those programs, including pauses to fuels reduction work by the Bureau of Land Management, prompted a letter from 14 Democratic senators, including Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), to new Interior Secretary Doug Burgum asking for the work to be reinstated.
“These fuels reduction projects save lives and property, reduce the danger to firefighters, and return our lands to a fire-adapted ecosystem that can better withstand the threat to human life, communities, infrastructure, and property,” the lawmakers wrote.
In the weeds:
Another step toward lake restoration — The Walker Basin Conservancy has acquired a combined more than 1,200 acre feet of surface and groundwater water rights to benefit the restoration efforts of Walker Lake.
The water, pulled from the West Walker River, previously served two Smith Valley ranches.
With the acquisition, the conservancy has acquired 57 percent of the water needed for the long-term restoration of the lake. With greater freshwater flows, a thriving fishery could again be established.
Utility rate increase — NV Energy is seeking to recover $215.7 million for costs incurred by the utility across Southern Nevada, including the conversion of the Reid Gardner Power Station to a battery storage facility and construction of the Silverhawk peakers project.
Last week, the utility filed a general rate review with state energy regulators that would result in up to a 9 percent increase in base rates for Southern Nevada customers.
The utility is also seeking to eliminate the fixed basic service charge for customers whose income is at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level ($32,150 for a family of four), and a residential and small commercial demand charge intended to encourage customers to spread energy usage for high-energy appliances throughout the day. If approved, those changes would go into effect April 1, 2026.
The utility is also proposing a shift for new rooftop solar customers’ billing cycles from one that measures energy usage and credits monthly to one that measures energy usage and credits every 15 minutes — a move the utility says allows for more accurate billing. Existing solar customers would be grandfathered in. If approved, it would go into effect Oct. 1.
It’s a fine line — This winter, it’s almost as if there’s an invisible line down the middle of Northern California and Nevada that delineates where precipitation does, and doesn’t, fall. The northern portions of both states continue to track well-above normal precipitation, while the central and southern portions received well-below-normal precipitation to start the water year, despite two larger storms that swept through in early February.
Parts of Southern Nevada experienced the driest start to the water year in 44 years, while northeastern California and northwestern Nevada experienced the wettest start to the water year on record, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Conditions in the expansive Upper Colorado River Basin are largely below average as well, although Lake Powell and Lake Mead levels are above what they were at this time last year, with Powell 35 percent full and Mead 34 percent full.
Call the police and the (new) fireman — The Clark County Commission ratified Las Vegas native Billy Samuels as the new chief of the Clark County Fire Department, the state’s largest fire department. Samuels has served with the department since 2001.
Samuels replaces former Chief John Steinbeck, who retired in January after being elected to the state Senate.
The Clark County Fire Department department oversees 32 full-time stations and 10 volunteer stations.
ICYMI:
Gardnerville laundry building linked to Japanese American heritage to be demolished
How Trump's mass layoffs raise the risk of wildfires in the US West, according to fired workers
Here’s what else I’m reading (and listening to) this week:
Vox explains the crisis coming for our national parks in two simple charts.
People brace for impacts on land, water and wildlife after feds fire thousands during the holiday weekend, High Country News reports.
The end of coal is nowhere in sight, from OilPrice.com.
More than a dozen National Park Service employees fired from Lake Mead as part of federal workforce purge, from the Nevada Current.
Bill would require the state’s biggest counties to add heat mitigation to growth plans, according to Nevada Public Radio.
A closer look:
Before cameras were commonplace, U.S. Geological Survey expedition painter Thomas Moran’s sketches and watercolors captured some of the West’s most magnificent features — his art is believed to have helped Yellowstone get designated as a national park in 1872.
His work included Elko’s Ruby Mountains, pictured here in a painting from 1879.