Paddock Fire incident command team holds community meeting in Emmett

The Nevada Type 3 Incident Command Team 3, the team managing The Paddock Fire, held an informational meeting for the community Saturday. The fire is now estimated to have burned over 187,000 acres as of Saturday.

• The perimeter of the fire is a total of 91 miles.
• Containment sits at 0%, as of Saturday.
• Sign up for AlertSense emergency notifications here.

( Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)

“A total of 91 miles is the perimeter of this fire, so it’s gonna take us a little bit to get around it," says Andy Bertelson, the Nevada Type 3 Team 3 Incident Commander.

Fire crews are still working to battle the Paddock fire, which sits at 0% containment as of Saturday.

“The current situation is, you may have noticed, that the fire has grown to 187,000 acres," says Robert Duggan, a public information officer on the Paddock Fire.

He tells me that an aerial mapping flight has helped make their maps more accurate.

“The main reason it’s grown to that is through the mapping and we’ve corrected some of the errors and we fixed up some of the lines so we’ve gotten better mapping," says Duggan.

He tells me that fighting a fire of this size comes with some challenges.

“Communication is a hardship, you have to work on your communication. Coordinating between the divisions, it gets challenging the larger a fire gets. And just the resources and what you have available to do the work and you don’t want to overwork people," added Duggan.

"Public and firefighter safety is first and foremost — always will be with us," says Bertelson.

“There’s definitely a lot of stress still, lots of anxiety still, around all of this understandably, and just the fact that there is still zero containment is a little bit nerve-racking," says Michelle Tuss, who lives in Emmett.

She tells me that meetings like this, where community members can ask questions and voice their concerns, are important.

“As a community, we do care and we do need help, like we are paying for these services and if our needs aren’t being met properly we want to figure out why that is and we also want to have the most up-to-date accurate information that’s out there," Tuss said.

“Just try and avoid and stay away from where all the fire activities are, and that will allow our fire people to do with they’re paid to do," says Duggan.