Firefighters Digging in Between Wildfires and Nevada Rail Town
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Firefighters were digging in Tuesday in a 12-mile buffer between a railroad town and two huge wildfires that have burned through a large uninhabited area of southern Nevada that is home to desert tortoise.
''The number one concern is to ensure that it doesn't continue to travel north toward Caliente,'' said David Chevalier, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman.
South of the town of Caliente, 935 firefighters were protecting the Union Pacific Railroad line. The rail line runs through Meadow Valley between the massive Mesquite and South Desert fire complexes about 50 miles north of Las Vegas.
''We're dealing with some erratic weather conditions today,'' he said. ''It'll be rather dangerous.''
Chevalier called forecasts for steady winds shifting from the south to the northwest with gusts up to 45 miles per hour ''a worst-case scenario'' for firefighters from states including California, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. They were being aided by six air tankers and seven helicopters.
No other structures were threatened in Lincoln County, but two firefighters were injured, Chevalier said. One firefighter suffered a broken ankle and was taken Monday to University Medical Center in Las Vegas for treatment, and a smokejumper broke his leg last week parachuting into the area.
Chevalier, at a command post in the small community of Bunkerville, reported 6 percent containment of the fires -- two complexes of 12 blazes that started with June 22 lightning strikes.
''We are the largest fire in the country right now,'' Chevalier said.
Chevalier could not provide firm acreage figures and said not all the area within the rugged and remote 628-square-mile fire zone was burned.
''It's sporadic,'' he said. ''It burns in irregular patterns. It's not all one charred area.''
Some firefighters reported seeing federally protected desert tortoises that survived flames sweeping across cheatgrass, sage, mesquite and Joshua trees, Chevalier said.
Caliente was believed to be a safe distance from the fire, and Chevalier said incident commanders expected flames to slow in green, wet vegetation in the mountains near the town.
Still, officials planned to meet Tuesday evening with residents at the town hall -- a 1920s-era railroad depot on the Union Pacific main line, 275 rail miles to Salt Lake City and 150 miles to Las Vegas.
''Everyone's concerned,'' said Bud Sanders, owner of the Knotty Pine Restaurant, a breakfast meeting place in the town of about 1,100 residents. ''We've got a lot of smoke and the air's pretty nasty. But this valley is pretty green. It would be pretty hard to catch anything here.''
The cost of fighting the fire on federal Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service land was estimated at $2.3 million.
South of Las Vegas, containment was predicted by nightfall on the Goodsprings fire, a 33,500-acre blaze that last week blanketed Las Vegas, about 10 miles away, with smoke and prompted the evacuation of a mountain Boy Scout camp.
Fewer than 400 firefighters remained Tuesday. But Joe Colwell, a fire information officer, said work wasn't finished.
''There are still hot spots,'' he said. ''We'll be patrolling the lines for several days.''
No serious injuries were reported and no structures were damaged. The fire charred more than 52 square miles of desert and rugged mountains west of Goodsprings.