Children attending Sierra Nevada Journeys camp near Portola, Calif., were loaded onto school buses at 10 p.m. Monday and returned to Sparks as four fires burned in Plumas County.
The fires, called the Gold Complex Fire, are estimated at more than 1,600 acres, burning south and northwest of Portola. They were sparked Monday afternoon by lightning as thunderstorms swept through the recreation area 50 miles from Reno.
Sean Hill, CEO of Sierra Nevada Journeys, said he watched and worried as plumes of smoke rose in the distance from 515-acre camp.
“I kept watching and every adjacent property except ours was being put on evacuation orders,” Hill said.
“I was talking to Plumas Emergency Services every 15 minutes. They were weighing giving us (emergency) buses, with them deploying help and responding to all the communities.”
Even though officials said the camp was safe for the time being, Hill pushed back. A plan had been set up last year to have Portola school buses pick up his campers in case of emergency.
“I’m a dad and safety is everything,” Hill said. “It didn’t take long for us to know it was the right choice to leave versus potentially facing an evacuation in the middle of the night.”
Hill said that by 10:45 p.m., the buses were loaded with the 180 campers and most of the staff.
And that’s when camp, although in the dark and on a bus, went back to being a little bit normal.
“I heard a lot of hushed conversations between the kids,” Hill said. “And we had camp songs."
Sierra Nevada Journeys met with parents at a gym in Sparks late Monday into Tuesday morning. About a dozen students were still at the school gym on Tuesday morning.
Hill said he was waiting for updates Tuesday on the situation in Portola.
This article originally appeared on Reno Gazette Journal: Reno-Sparks kids evacuated from Sierra Nevada Journeys camp as fires burn near Portola
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