JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
It has been a dramatic summer fire season in the Western United States. Dozens of wildfires destroyed hundreds of homes, breaking records, and 20 people died fighting them. Wildfires are still very much a threat in Southern California, but relief has finally come for inland states and regions. The Mountain West News Bureau's Murphy Woodhouse reports.
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MURPHY WOODHOUSE, BYLINE: In a dusty, cavernous garage, rancher Tom Sharp watches a mechanic work on a military surplus Humvee painted red and retrofitted to fight wildfires. It was damaged in the lightning-caused Second Flat Fire.
TOM SHARP: And we lost all of our transmission fluid somewhere in the sage.
WOODHOUSE: It burned more than 100,000 acres of sage and pine in late July. Sharp heads up a local firefighting nonprofit. They're volunteer firefighters, mostly ranchers, who use surplus government gear in vehicles. Driven by big fires like the Second Flat, Oregonians have seen nearly 2.4 million acres burned - more than a quarter of the 9 million acres burned nationwide. That's more than any other year at this time in at least a decade.
SHARP: When we lose our rangelands to wildfire, we're losing natural resources that, you know, support the agricultural industry here.
WOODHOUSE: It was also one of the worst smoke years in decades and destroyed hundreds of homes in several states. In Colorado, the Aspen Acres Fire was one of the state's largest ever, consuming hundreds of homes. In Washington, 833 homes burned in Spokane in early August, totaling more than $1 billion in losses - the most costly wildfire disaster in state history. In Nevada, Reno and surrounding Washoe County were besieged by fire in August.
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WOODHOUSE: Whipping winds blind a fire engine crew with smoke in the shaky nighttime video shared on social media by firefighters.
RICHARD EDWARDS: And it came across like a wall.
WOODHOUSE: Richard Edwards is chief of the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District.
EDWARDS: So we have an area, you know, probably six, seven miles of wildland urban interface that we're now trying to protect with somewhere around 25 or 30 fire engines - and hundreds of homes, and we were just outnumbered.
WOODHOUSE: Washoe County saw so many fires that some people had to evacuate twice. One, the Hawk Fire, destroyed 47 homes, the most ever in Nevada wildfire, and fatally injured an elderly woman.
EDWARDS: Our community is fatigued. So the Bug Fire led right to the Fred Fire, which led to the Stallion - a lot of evacuations with that. More evacuations even two weeks later with the Hawk Fire. We had over 46,000 people evacuated at one time.
WOODHOUSE: Earlier this month, yet another fire burned 1,500 acres west of Reno.
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WOODHOUSE: At one of several memorials this summer, U.S. Wildland Fire Service Chief Brian Fennessy spoke about Nathan Matthews, 1 of 18 people who died.
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BRIAN FENNESSY: Wildland firefighters are a different breed. They're strong, resilient, courageous, and they're determined. Their work demands long days, heavy burdens and quiet acts of bravery.
WOODHOUSE: Seven of those who died were trapped by flames, like Matthews. That's a relatively high number. The last time multiple firefighters were killed by fire was in 2022, the summer five people also died in firefighting helicopter crashes.
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FENNESSY: And they work in increasingly challenging conditions over the long days, weeks and months of any fire season.
WOODHOUSE: Or what many in western states now think of as a fire year.
For NPR News, I'm Murphy Woodhouse.
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