Some allowed to return after Hawk Fire destroys homes in Reno area

Around 9,000 people have been cleared to return to their Reno, Nevada, area homes Tuesday as firefighters made more progress containing a major, human-caused wildfire that destroyed more than 40 homes, officials said.

Around 5,000 people were still evacuated because of the Hawk Fire, which began Saturday and grew quickly, Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam said at a news conference.

But by 2 p.m., residents in the areas east of State Route 395 were allowed to return, Balaam said. The west side of the highway was the hardest hit, he said.

The fire has burned 15,067 acres, and it was 27% contained Tuesday afternoon, officials said at a news conference.

No deaths have been reported in the fire, which Richard Edwards, fire chief of the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District, said was remarkable.

“I think it’s incredible that we’ve not had a fatality in this fire, given how fast it’s moved,” he said.

The fire moved six miles within 24 hours of its start Saturday, Edwards said.

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The cause of the fire, which is believed to have been human-caused, remains under investigation, said Balaam, the sheriff. It was not known Tuesday whether it was intentional or accidental, he said.

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“We can say that because of where it occurred,” Balaam said. “It was in the middle of nowhere. There was no lightning strikes. There was nothing else that could have caused this fire.”

While firefighters have made progress, critical fire weather conditions were forecast to begin Wednesday and last through the weekend, Edwards said.

“Please be careful,” he said. “All of these fires, these large fires that we’ve incurred over the last 2½ weeks, which were human-caused — that means they’re preventable.”