NEW HARMONY, Utah, (AP) -- Winds gusting up to 40 mph pushed a desert wildfire away from homes Monday, providing a respite for people in this small town who had been in its path.
''If the wind holds its direction, then nobody is in danger,'' said Vince Mazzier, fire information officer for the Bureau of Land Management.
However, that could change if the wind shifts direction, and the fire still remains within four miles of this community in Utah's southwest corner.
The National Interagency Fire Center said the fire had burned 10,000 acres of grass, pinyon, pine and oak brush. It was 30 percent contained.
Four-hundred firefighters were battling the fire, along with six single-engine aircraft and at least two helicopters that were dropping water and retardant.
Washington County Emergency Services Coordinator Dean Cox said an evacuation plan is in place if needed, and several water trucks have been brought in.
The county planned a community meeting Monday night to brief residents, but some of New Harmony's 190 residents already have evacuated.
The fire stretched for about eight miles along Interstate 15, the main highway between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Intermittent closures of the highway have frustrated travelers since Saturday night.
The National Interagency Fire Center said Monday that 20 large fires were burning on more than 735,000 acres in Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Washington.
In Nevada, a 33,500-acre wildfire that had blanketed Las Vegas with smoke and prompted the evacuation a Boy Scout camp was nearing containment.
Fire information officer Joe Colwell said the Goodsprings fire southwest of Las Vegas was 60 percent contained, with full containment possible by Tuesday night.
''We're basically in a mop-up mode now,'' he said. ''But we still have pretty explosive conditions.''
In Southern California, firefighters said they were close to containing a 70,000-plus-acre fire in the Mojave National Preserve that destroyed five homes and two cabins built in the late 1800s. The fire scorched sections of the preserve containing historic mines and sites of ancient Indian pictographs, but the extent of the damage was unknown.
