"Mother Nature has a bag of tricks. You never know what she's going to give," said Lisa Ortega, a Nevada Division of Forestry spokeswoman for the Gass Complex fires, a group of six blazes that merged over the weekend in an irregular 26-square-mile area of the vast Desert National Wildlife Refuge.
Some 325 firefighters from states including Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon and Montana were battling flames by hand in crackling-dry grasses, creosote and mesquite bushes, and pinon, juniper and Joshua trees in steep terrain around Gass Peak.
Fire managers estimated containment at about 20 percent, but expected to be able to encircle the 16,800-acre fire by Friday, Ortega said. The Gass fires were sparked by multiple lightning strikes last Friday, and grew dramatically over the weekend as they were pushed by hot, dry winds.
Federal firefighting teams arriving amid humid, cloudy weather Monday and Tuesday dug in to stop flames from advancing toward power lines and the largest power plant serving Las Vegas, located about seven miles away. No structures, including the electricity plant, were immediately threatened, officials said, and no injuries were reported.
Another blaze, the 33-square-mile Vegas Fire, was declared contained Tuesday in the rugged Sheep Mountains of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, a 1.5 million acre reserve in which threatened desert bighorn sheep and the endangered desert tortoise live. Firefighters reported finding one charred tortoise carcass Monday inside the lines of the Vegas Fire, which was sparked by lightning on June 27.
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Thundershowers helped firefighters contain wildfires in southern Nevada on Tuesday, while crews quickly extinguished several small fires ignited by new lightning strikes, federal fire officials said.
"The rain has helped a lot today," said Hillerie Patton, a Bureau of Land Management fire spokeswoman who said crews expected to contain one large fire burning within 50 miles of Las Vegas in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.
A federal firefighting team arrived Monday to bolster some 110 firefighters on the lines of a separate fire that burned out of control during the weekend and sent smoke over a mountain peak about 25 miles north of the Las Vegas Strip.
The Gass Complex fire was reported to be 5 percent contained Monday after hot, dry winds fanned it during the weekend from about 2,500 acres to about 16,800 acres north of Gass Peak.
Crews on Tuesday were mapping the rugged and irregular fire area covering 26 square miles of the vast refuge, where access to the public has been closed, said Linda Steinhaus, spokeswoman for the incident management team that arrived from Boise, Idaho.
Firefighters were aided by a change in the weather that blanketed southern Nevada with clouds, calming winds and keeping temperatures below 100 degrees.
"The moisture and humidity are helping us," Patton said Tuesday. "We received rain overnight and this morning."
Firefighters expected to contain the 21,120-acre Vegas Fire, which was sparked by lightning June 27 in the rugged Sheep Mountains of the refuge, a vast habitat for desert bighorn sheep and the endangered desert tortoise. Patton said one tortoise was found dead and burned Monday.
Firefighters also declared containment but continued to monitor hot spots of the 500-acre "Double Nickel" wildfire, which was sparked by lightning Sunday night and briefly threatened communications towers in the rugged Virgin Mountains about 12 miles south of Mesquite.
Lightning sparked a fire that charred less than an acre on Mount Potosi, about 20 miles southwest of Las Vegas, before it was extinguished early Tuesday by firefighters from nearby Mountain Springs, Patton said.
In northern Nevada, fire officials declared containment of the 79,859-acre Suzie fire, which closed Interstate 80 west of Elko a week ago, and the 10,316-acre Sneekee fire, 35 miles southwest of Elko.
In the Reno and Carson City area, officials declared containment of the Sierra Tahoe Complex, a group of 16 wildfires covering 13,323 acres.
More than 150,000 acres have burned in Nevada since June 23, but authorities have reported no major injuries and no structures burned.
