Massive wildfire erupts with fire tornado near Calif. border.

LATEST Aug. 11, 7:30 p.m. The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office arrested a 47-year-old woman on a third-degree arson charge in connection with the Fred Fire in northern Nevada after she told crews responding to the blaze that she had started it, the sheriff’s department said in a post on social media Tuesday.

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According to authorities, Christine Mitchell left a residence near the 1300 block of Freds Mountain Road and intentionally started multiple fires in the area.

Aug. 11, 4:50 p.m. Three wildfires are burning nearly 90,000 acres, combined, in northern Nevada, near the California border, prompting evacuation orders and warnings that are impacting thousands of residents who live in suburbs north of Reno and Sparks.

North of Reno, the Bug and Fred fires have burned 57,966 acres, as of midday Tuesday, and are at 4% containment. Fire officials said on Facebook that the Bug and Fred wildfires have “burned together” and are now being treated as one wildfire. 

Nearby, the Stallion Fire has burned 31,548 acres, as of Tuesday evening, and is at no containment. The Stallion Fire is burning near Pyramid Lake, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation and the community of Nixon, where about 450 people live. The fire started at Stallion Drive and Rodero Road, east of Moses Rock and south of Pyramid Lake.

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency on Monday after 6,000 people were evacuated in Washoe County and the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony.

The Bug Fire started in California on Saturday near Lassen County’s Hallelujah Junction, where highways 395 and 70 intersect, and spread quickly to the east, crossing the state border into Nevada and merging with the Fred Fire, according to the latest perimeter data from InciWeb.

The Fred Fire ignited Sunday afternoon near Lemmon Valley, a suburb of Reno with a population of about 5,000 people. Both fires are believed to have been caused by human activity, according to InciWeb.

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The Bug and Fred fires are moving rapidly, with wind-driven runs and flanking contributing to the growth amid hot, dry weather and poor overnight humidity recovery, according to InciWeb. Spot fires are also simultaneously igniting, causing embers to travel ahead of the main fire and creating a risk for new ignitions beyond the active fire area.

A video posted on Facebook by the Reno Firefighters Association appears to show a fire tornado in the Bug and Fred fires, with smoke swirling through the air amid surrounding “erratic” flames.

According to fire authorities, west and southwest winds of 10-22 mph, with gusts reaching 35 mph, are expected Tuesday afternoon and could hinder crews’ efforts to contain the fire.

Authorities expect “significant fire movement” with all the blazes on Tuesday, prompting evacuations for nearby communities. The latest evacuation information can be found on PerimeterMap.com. As of Tuesday afternoon, 253 total personnel are on the scene of all three fires.

Fire crews have not assessed whether any structures have been damaged as of Tuesday afternoon, a spokesperson for the Incident Management Team told SFGATE.