RENO, Nev. (AP) -- A top wildland firefighting team arrived Thursday to battle a blaze sparked by a target shooter and driven by strong, erratic wind that destroyed four homes and threatened hundreds more south of Reno before changing direction.
Residents of the Pleasant Valley area began returning home late Wednesday, but the wind, warm temperatures and five years of drought left grass, brush and light timber ready to explode.
``It's a bad day to have a fire,'' Sierra Front spokesman Franklin Pemberton said Wednesday.
More than 600 firefighters on the ground were being assisted by seven helicopters, at least 25 engines and 14 air tankers, Pemberton said. The fire was 10 percent contained.
The blaze began when a bullet fired by a target shooter ricocheted off a rock, Fire Marshal Larry Farr said. It spread to at least 3,000 acres within a few hours, officials said.
Farr said the man was target shooting in a legal location. Fire officials said the man tried to put out the fire with dirt, but it spread too fast for him to control.
Besides the homes, at least a dozen other structures burned, and eight more were damaged, said fire spokesman Mark Struble of the Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center. About 350 homes had been threatened.
