A fast-moving reno fire northeast of the city has burned more than 1,300 acres, prompting evacuation orders and warnings across parts of the Truckee Meadows region, according to KTVN. The blaze, dubbed the Fred Mountain Fire, ignited off Red Rock Road and has grown to an estimated 1,393 acres as of the latest update from Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District, the outlet reported.
Crews with the fire district said the fire is spreading at a moderate rate of speed, and utility power has been shut off in the affected area. KTVN reported the power shutoff was ordered both to prevent additional fire starts from downed or damaged lines and to protect firefighters working the blaze. The move reflects a now-common tactic in Western wildfire response, where utilities and fire agencies coordinate to reduce the risk of electrical equipment sparking new ignitions while crews are actively engaged on the ground.
The Fred Mountain Fire is burning northeast of another active blaze in the region, the Bug Fire, and officials say the two incidents have overlapping evacuation zones. That proximity has complicated the response, with residents in the North Valleys and surrounding communities needing to track guidance for both fires simultaneously rather than a single, isolated incident.
Evacuation Zones Overlap Between Two Fires
According to KTVN, both evacuation warnings and evacuation orders have been issued for the Fred Mountain Fire, though the exact boundaries were still being refined as the fire progressed. Because the Fred Mountain Fire's evacuation zones cross over with those already established for the Bug Fire, residents in the area are being told to check a shared perimeter map for the most current information rather than relying on static instructions, KTVN reported. Fire officials have urged residents in and around the danger zones to monitor that map closely, since evacuation lines can shift quickly as fire behavior changes.
For those forced to leave their homes, Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District has set up an evacuation center at the Evelyn Mount Community Center, located at 1301 Valley Road in Reno, KTVN reported. A trailer has also been staged there specifically to accommodate small animals, giving evacuees a place to bring pets rather than leaving them behind or scrambling for last-minute arrangements.
Larger animals, including livestock and horses common in the semi-rural areas north of Reno, are being directed to a separate site. KTVN reported that a large-animal evacuation center has been established at the Reno Livestock Event Center, 1350 North Wells Avenue, with evacuees instructed to enter through Gate 2. The designation of a distinct large-animal shelter underscores how many of the threatened properties in the Cold Springs, Silver Knolls and North Valleys areas include ranches, hobby farms and other operations with animals that require more space and different handling than household pets.
Bug Fire Erupted Days Earlier in Cold Springs
The Fred Mountain Fire's emergence adds a second front to a wildfire situation that had already drawn heavy attention in the Reno area after the Bug Fire broke out in Cold Springs, Nevada. The Reno Gazette Journal documented the Bug Fire's rapid spread through a series of photographs taken the night of August 8, 2026, showing flames and smoke visible from multiple vantage points around the North Valleys.
Images published by the Gazette Journal, credited to residents, Cal Fire and the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District, show the Bug Fire burning in brush west of Cold Springs and visible from locations including Silver Knolls near Osage Road and Shiloh, as well as from behind a Walmart in Stead around 9:45 p.m. that Saturday night. A photo taken from Cold Springs captured the fire's glow against the night sky, illustrating how visible the flames were to residents across the North Valleys even before daylight brought a fuller picture of the fire's extent.
The Nevada Seismology Lab's Alert Wildfire camera network, which the Gazette Journal cited among its image sources, has become a standard tool for both fire agencies and the public to track blazes in real time across the region. Additional photos came from residents themselves, including images shared by Faith Photography NV and by locals identified as Dani Pruss and Cheryl Siegel, reflecting how closely area residents were monitoring the fire's movement toward populated areas.
While the Gazette Journal's coverage focused on the Bug Fire's visible spread and did not detail acreage or evacuation specifics in the material reviewed, KTVN's reporting on the Fred Mountain Fire makes clear that evacuation planning for the two incidents is now intertwined. Residents near Cold Springs, Silver Knolls and the broader North Valleys corridor are effectively being asked to watch developments on both fires at once, given that a single perimeter map is being used to communicate evacuation status across the shared zones.
What Residents Are Being Told to Do
For now, the operative guidance from Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District, as relayed by KTVN, is straightforward: residents in and around the fire areas should check the official perimeter map regularly rather than assume evacuation orders are static, and anyone under an evacuation order or warning should be prepared to move quickly given the fire's moderate rate of spread. The power shutoff in the Fred Mountain Fire area also means residents there may be without electricity for an unspecified period, adding another layer of disruption beyond the immediate fire threat.
The shelter arrangements at the Evelyn Mount Community Center and the Reno Livestock Event Center give evacuees concrete destinations, but neither KTVN nor the Gazette Journal reporting reviewed here indicates how many people or animals have actually been evacuated so far, nor whether any structures have been damaged or destroyed by either the Fred Mountain Fire or the Bug Fire. Fire officials have not yet released containment figures for either blaze in the material available, leaving the full scope of the danger, and how quickly crews can get ahead of it, still very much in question for residents watching smoke rise over the North Valleys.
