MINDEN, Nev. (AP) -- With an area half the size of Rhode Island in flames or in embers in southern Nevada, state fire officials are helping prepare volunteer fire departments for what could be a horrific fire season.
The wet winter, followed by a wet spring, has prompted a heavy crop of highly flammable cheatgrass and brush, according to Mike Dondero, fire management officer for the Nevada Division of Forestry.
''It's serious and it's going to be a long summer,'' he said at a Nevada Rural Summit workshop. ''You're probably going to see a lot of fire this summer.''
So far, more than 400,000 acres have burned or are surrounded by flames _ mostly in southern Nevada. That's 10 times the number of acres that burned last year and is more than one-fifth the record 1.8 million acres that burned in Nevada in 1999.
Along with providing fast burning fuel, Dondero said the heavy grass and brush flatten out and continue to burn under the red slurry dropped by air tankers.
Along with the lightning-sparked fires in southern Nevada, law officers and fire officials are investigating nearly a dozen brush fires that appear to have been intentionally set the past two weeks around Carson City.
Except for the 735-acre badger fire southeast of Carson City, all of the other fires were small and were extinguished quickly.
As a result of the ample fuel, fire restrictions are in effect for southern and western Nevada. Campfires are prohibited and smoking is permitted only in closed vehicles or developed recreation sites.
''The extreme danger existing in Nevada through this weekend and the rest of this summer cannot be underestimated,'' Bureau of Land Management State Fire Management Officer Kevin Hull said on Wednesday.
Dondero, the Forest Service's former fire management officer for the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, said the state is making a special effort to reach out to volunteer operations that often are the first to respond to fires in rural parts of the state.
''We have sent out special messages about the heavy fuel loading and cautioned them not to make frontal attacks. Start at the back of the fire and flank it,'' Dondero said at Tuesday's summit in Minden.
''We're providing training all the time. They have their wildland component and they have their structure component,'' he said.
Nevada Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, who also spoke at the rural conference on Tuesday, said he had never seen so much smoke in the Las Vegas area.
''I don't mean to be an alarmist, but I think we're going to have a horrendous fire season,'' he said. ''As much vegetation as there is to burn down there, there is more in rural Nevada.''
