The Tule Fire west of Pyramid Lake has burned more than 30,000 acres since Friday and forced one community to declare disaster. Reno Public Radio’s Noah Glick reports.
Residents of Sutcliffe were forced to evacuate their homes on Saturday, after the Tule Fire pushed its way to the rim of Pyramid Lake. Scott Carey is spokesman for the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and he says people have shown incredible resiliency.
“The community together has just rallied like I’ve never seen it," he says. "The tribal government was able to mobilize with the help of the health clinic, the high school—all these departments that have nothing to do with disaster response.”
Carey says that even though four homes and two vehicles were destroyed, no one has been injured or displaced. But, he says there are long-term effects.
“A lot of the areas that burned were areas where tribal members would go to collect plants for traditional medicinal purposes,” he says. “And then we’re really concerned about flash flood. It’s monsoon season’s coming up, you lose all that stuff that was holding things back.”
The community issued a disaster declaration Sunday in hopes of getting state and federal funding to aid in recovery efforts.
