Neighborhood men with shovels raced to the scene of a small wildfire outside the Carson Indian Colony on Sunday evening, helping to extinguish the blaze.
"They're the heroes," said witness Delma Corval. She said she was driving by when she saw the smoke and called 911.
"All those guys came with tools and helped fight the fire," she said. "You could see everybody running from their houses."
The fire burned about a quarter acre before it was controlled.
"We built a fire line so it wouldn't go down to that house then we stopped it from going up the hill, too," said Sean Haggerty, a volunteer firefighter. He stood with a shovel watching Carson City Firefighters spray water.
"We're the Carson Colony Hotshots," he joked. Haggerty was on a Bureau of Indian Affairs fire crew from 1986 through 1988.
Jack Malone also helped fight the fire.
"We all came out to help," he said. "We stopped it from getting to that trailer." He was on a hotshot crew out of Truckee in 1972 and 1973. The men said homeowner Joe Bryan brought out his garden hose.
Children are suspected of causing the fire by playing with matches, according to fire department authorities. The first crew to arrive found matchbooks around the area, said battalion chief Richard Chrzanowski.
Three engines, two ambulances and a command vehicle from Carson City Fire Department responded. Because the fire is on Bureau of Land Management land, the investigation will be handled by the Nevada Division of Forestry, Chrzanowski said.