By admin 
Power was out across most of the Truckee area, and parts of eastern Sierra County were under an evacuation warning as the Hawk Fire ignited near Reno and spread rapidly on Saturday.
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The fire was approximately 2,500 to 3,000 acres as of 3:35 p.m., according to a Facebook post by the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District. It was spreading northeast, with mandatory evacuation orders and warnings affecting more than 1,000 homes northwest of Reno, extending north toward Reno-Stead Airport and west to the California-Nevada state line.
The Hawk Fire as of Saturday evening caused power outages for tens of thousands of homes and businesses in Washoe County and in California’s Nevada County.
The Truckee Donner Public Utility District, which services the Truckee area, said in a 6:20 p.m. post to its website that all of the district’s more than 12,500 customers were without power because NV Energy had de-energized transmission lines that serve TDPUD’s system in response to the Hawk Fire.
NV Energy on its own website as of 8:30 p.m. said about 27,000 Northern Nevada customers in the Reno, Sparks and Copperfield areas of were without power due to a “shutdown for active wildfire.”
Both utilities said they did not have estimated times for power to be turned back on.
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The evacuation warning for Sierra County was issued to parts of the county that immediately border Nevada, though Sierra County officials noted that the fire was spreading northeast and away from California.
“Residents within these zones should be prepared to evacuate if conditions change,” the Sierra County Sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post. The blaze began as a vegetation fire and started late Saturday morning, according to posts by the Sierra County and Washoe County sheriff’s offices.
This fire is unrelated to the now-contained Hawk Fire that burned in El Dorado County last week.
U.S. Forest Service resources have been diverted from the nearly-contained Bug Fire to help with response efforts, according to the fire district. Local, state and federal air tankers, as well as two helicopters, will help contain the fire.
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This story was originally published August 22, 2026 at 4:52 PM.