On July 28, 1939 near Orovada, Nevada the Rock Creek fire took the lives of five firefighters.

It started at 11:15 on July 28th, 1939 from lightning. The point of origin is located approximately five miles southeast of Orovada, Nevada and four miles due east of the Highway 95 monument. Between 15:30 to 16:00 the fire burned explosively downhill in a westerly direction, under the influence of a thunderstorm directly over the fire that produced 40 to 60 mile per hour downdraft winds. A crew was entrapped and 5 died.

More information about the Rock Creek fire can be found at the Fire Leadership site. Additional infamous fires are listed in the Infamous World Fires publication on our Documents page.