Hot Times In The Biggest Little City

Yesterday we were returning to Reno from Frenchman Lake when we ran smack into a grim reminder that Summer in the rural west doesn't just mean warm temperatures and getting burned by the high-altitude sun. It also means fire season.

In the mountains just to the east of Bordertown (the tiny casino that looks and feels more like a truck stop on Highway 395 just inside the California border) a forest fire that hadn't been there when we'd driven by just a couple hours previously had by that time (about 7 p.m.) burned what looked to be at least a couple hundred acres. Overnight the hilariously-named Balls Canyon fire tripled in size, and this morning our home valley was chocked with smoke and the thick smell of burning wood.

The scuttlebutt has it that this fire is early, but in my experience it's more or less right on time. Summer is here in force, and recent temperatures in the 90's have led to tinderbox-like conditions. When yesterday's weather brought storm clouds and lightning but no rain, the results were practically inevitable.

It doesn't look like the Balls Canyon Fire (God, twelve-year-old boys everywhere are rolling on the floor laughing at that name--it's almost as funny as the fact that the Washoe Grill used to be called The Glory Hole) is going to threaten any homes. But this may just be the beginning of a long, hot summer.