Waterfall fire- 5 years later: 'The tools we had were no match for the enemy'

Up on the hill at the end of Kings Canyon Road on July 14, 2004, Carson City firefighters knew they were up against a formidable opponent.

The first report of a fire was received by dispatch at 2:57 a.m. A deputy patrolling the Goni Road area noticed a small glow and called it in. By 3:50 a.m., a hand crew was on a ridge slightly south and above the Kings Creek waterfall.

"Right away we had crews up here with shovels and picks," said Fire Chief Stacey Giomi on Wednesday as he stood near the spot three-quarters of a mile up the rugged mountain where the Waterfall fire began. "But our biggest obstacle was that we couldn't get any water on the fire, and the tools we had were no match for the enemy."

As the morning wore on, residents leisurely watched the activity. At daybreak, air support came to douse the area with water. A command post was set up on Longview Way.

The first crisis - and probably the turning point of the fire - happened when reports came in that one firefighter had a broken leg and another a possible broken back on a rock outcropping amid 100-foot pines that were combusting like matchsticks.

The focus of the water drops shifted to the area around the injured firefighters and their rescuers.

"One of the reasons that the fire, I think, got as bad as it did was because we now had 20 firefighters that we had to rescue," said Giomi. "That happened at the peak area of time when we could gain the most headway on a fire, from about 10 a.m. to noon.

"And about 1 o'clock is when it really took off from the backside of this hill. It caught that down canyon wind, and that's when it whipped around us and went around the front."

For the fire crews and residents at the end of Kings Canyon Road, all hell broke loose.

"The combination of downslope winds, warm temperatures, dry fuels and the slope ... made it a firestorm," said Carson City Battalion Chief Dan Shirey at the time.

Flames raced out of the canyon, consumed three emergency vehicles and homes belonging to the Burnaugh, Stokes, Best, Carlson, Darney, Kulik, Kelly, Staub and Ouilette families.

Anyone at the end of Kings Canyon fled.

"When that thing blew up, we weren't sure we didn't kill people," said Giomi. "I came out of there, and I thought I would be very surprised if we didn't have dead firefighters up there."

The inferno raced north toward Ash Canyon, east to C Hill, and south toward Voltaire Canyon.

Flames nearly consumed homes at the foot of C Hill. Fire crews and homeowners were able to keep the flames from spreading to homes along West Fifth Street, but the fire raced along the ridge and came onto Curry Street behind the Shell gas station.

There the fire continued south where it narrowly missed a home on the west side of Curry Street, ran behind the railroad museum, burned outbuildings and hay bales behind S&W feed, raced past Greenhouse Garden Center, and set it sights on Preston Auto/Electric at 291 Rhodes St. and the Borst home at 340 Betts St. The business and home were destroyed.

From Lakeview to Voltaire Canyon, homes were evacuated.

The city responds

Almost immediately, local media began fielding dozens of phone calls from people wanting to help. Some offered their pastures to displaced horses, others offered to take in dogs, birds, cats and livestock.

The emergency shelter was swamped with clothing, drinks, food, water. An emergency animal shelter sprung up at Fritsch Elementary. While it seemed the entire city was in flames, everyone wanted to come to the rescue.

By nightfall, the flames against the pitch black mountains resembled lava seeping from a volcano. The air was thick with smoke. People were unsure what had survived.

Fire crews, aided by calmer winds, were able to get a line around the fire and stop it from reaching homes in Ash Canyon.

With the sunlight of the next morning came optimism. Evacuated families were allowed to return to their homes.

But the afternoon winds Thursday reawakened the fire with a fury.

Like a replay of the previous day in Kings Canyon, panicked families began their exodus from Timberline.

As the fire swept north and firefighters made determined stands to save most of the houses, the fire gobbled up the homes of the Schardin, Amrhein, Osborn, Carter, Goodnight, Verschell, Fenwick and Randall families.

Though the worst happened in two days and no other homes were lost, it took more than 2,000 firefighters five days to contain the blaze. Carson City took even longer to get back to normal.

For months to come the Nevada Division of Forestry and private citizens reseeded and planted trees and cut down others burned in the area. The governor declared a state of emergency and FEMA earmarked money toward the $25 million cost of fighting the fire. But the work isn't done, and every year since then, more money is added to that amount as restoration work continues.

Regretting the impossible

Giomi still winces at the thought of the homes that were lost.

As a teenager, his family's restaurant and his father's life's work - an Italian delicatessen - burned to the ground.

"It wasn't our home, but it was our livelihood. The walls were filled with family pictures and the whole family worked there," he said. "I understand how devastating it is."

He said he and all the local firefighters still feel a sting about the Waterfall fire.

"We've all been to wildland fires where homes have burned down, but they aren't homes of your neighbors, and they aren't homes of your friends," he said.

"Emotionally that is the biggest difference, you're a little bit detached when you go away - not that you do the job any differently - you're just a little bit detached because you don't see the guy whose house burned down in the grocery store once a week."

Mark Carter said he saw first-hand Giomi's regret.

"A week later he came to see us and he was in tears about having been unable to save our house," said Carter on Friday. "I was moved by it. I thought it showed the dedication he has to his job, that he would be so concerned that he had been unable to do something that was probably impossible to do."