Complex Incident Management Team now in place for Davis Fire | South Lake Tahoe

WASHOE COUNTY, Nev. – The allied command agencies working on the Davis Fire have ordered a Complex Incident Management Team (CIMT) for the fire that has been burning in the Washoe Valley since Sept. 7, 2024. The fire has burned 5,596 acres and is zero percent contained.

With the CIMT, more resources are available, and incident meteorologists and fire behavior experts are on the scene. (In California this type of team has been called a Type 1 management team).

Four “super scoopers” are working the fire, dipping into Lake Tahoe for water and dropping onto the fire. These aircraft are contracted with the United States Forest Service (USF) and assigned to the Davis Fire. Contracts were already in place to take water from Tahoe, and nearby Washoe Lake is not as deep as needed for the aircraft. Washoe is being used for the helicopters scooping up water to drop on the fire.

The CL-415 planes scoop up 1,600 gallons of water from a lake and drop on fire, making them a very important part of the fire attack.

There has been very little fire fighting from the air at night due to the hazardous conditions and a lack of specially trained pilots and planes that can operate in the steep terrain in the dark. With so many fires burning in the country, resources are slim.

Agencies are preparing for worst-case scenarios with the Red Flag Warnings in place. On Wednesday, the National Weather Service said the warning is a “particularly dangerous situation,” a warning they haven’t issued in five years.

The wind Tuesday afternoon is traveling from the S/SW to the N/NE, and tomorrow it is expected to move from the west to the east.

On Tuesday night there will be a community meeting that will feature the CIMT team, including the meteorologist and fire behavior team. It will be at 7 pm at Depoali Middle School in Reno and streamed on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/HumboldtToiyabeNF. It will also be found on YouTube by searching @DavisFire.

For more information, follow https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/nvhtf-davis-fire. The new CIMT team will be updating it when new information is available with maps, meeting links, etc.

CIMT did advise the public to not rely on satellite images of the fire as they pick up heat, not the exact perimeter of the fire. Anything that picks up heat will show on the map.

The fire is outside of the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit boundary and is burning in the Humboldt-Toyable District.