Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fire grows to over 116,000 acres and threatens Las Vegas

The Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fire continue to spread up north, and now parts of Las Vegas are preparing to evacuate. The Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak Fire continue to evolve. As of Sunday night, the fire has burned more than 116,000 acres and is only about 30 percent contained.”Friday’s wind event outpaced any of our production rates. We saw a little more than 30 thousand acres of growth last night,” said Carl Schwope, the incident commander for the Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fire.The fire has now burned more than 116,000 acres and is only about 30 percent contained. “We are not seeing anything weather-wise, fuel-wise, fire location-wise in the near future that will aid us in suppressing this fire,” Schwope said. As the fire continues to push further south, areas of Las Vegas are now in danger of becoming evacuation zones.”We’re pushing 100,000 acres. Could it double in size? Absolutely. We’re not gaining much containment, and we’re starting to make more decisions on evacuations here in the near future. We’re looking at evacuations for parts of Las Vegas proper in the future,” Schwope said.In Las Vegas, where the center for evacuees is being run, the Red Cross is ready to respond to the call. Charles Zurenko is the site manager for the center.Zurenko said, “We’ve had some folks here staying in the shelter for the past nine days or so. We still have the open capacity, and folks need to come in if they need a place to stay. We have other facilities on standby if the need arises. We hope it doesn’t, but we always have a plan in place.”