LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A two-week battle to stop lightning-sparked wildfires in southern Nevada neared an end Wednesday, with firefighters concentrating on one remaining blaze in an uninhabited area of Lincoln County.
The Delamar fire remained 40 percent contained in a 240-square-mile area between Alamo and Caliente, said Dorothy Harvey, a federal Bureau of Land Management fire spokeswoman.
Officials expected containment by Thursday with the help of additional helicopters and crews reassigned from the smoldering lines of the state's largest fire along the Nevada-Utah border, Harvey said.
No structures were threatened. Two of the 528 firefighters on the fire were hurt Tuesday, Harvey said. One had a wrenched knee. Another reported an ankle injury.
David Chevalier, U.S. Forest Service fire spokesman for the larger Duzak fire, said many firefighters had reached their 14-day limit on the lines and were being sent home to rest. Others were moved to the blaze still raging 50 miles to the west.
''We're downsizing considerably and assigning resources to the Delamar fire where they're needed,'' Chevalier said. ''There are still some hot spots in the high country where pinon and juniper are still flaring up. But it's one tree at a time.''
The Duzak blaze was the biggest of more than a dozen fires ignited by lightning since June 22.
It was declared 95 contained Wednesday in an 800-square-mile area that fire officials mapped anew on Tuesday. Containment was expected by the end of the day Wednesday.
Another blaze south of Caliente, dubbed the Meadow Valley fire, was contained at 146,039 acres _ or about 228 square miles. Officials estimate that about half the acreage in the fire zones burned.
After using more than 1,000 firefighters on the lines at one time, Chevalier said officials felt lucky that few injuries were reported. One firefighter suffered a hip injury parachuting into the fire zone and another broke an ankle the first week.
The cost of fighting the Duzak fire, which swept through bighorn sheep and threatened desert tortoise habitat was estimated at $5.75 million.
Harvey said initial estimates of the cost of fighting the Delamar fire were about $1.4 million.
Elsewhere, the 67-square-mile Fork fire was contained about 35 miles southwest of Mesquite. No structures were damaged and no injuries were reported.
