Firefighters make progress on sprawling Nevada wildfire
By SANDRA CHEREB
ASSOCIATED PRESS
RENO, Nev. (AP) - Nearly 500 firefighters hoped to take advantage of cooler temperatures Tuesday to subdue a northern Nevada wildland fire that encompasses an area as large as New York City and Washington, D.C., combined.
The Winters fire northeast of Winnemucca was 40 percent contained, fire officials said. Burning in mainly grass and brush, the fire area was estimated at 234,900 acres, or 367 square miles - bigger than New York's five boroughs and the nation's capital. Its perimeter stretched for 174 miles - roughly the distance from Chicago to Indianapolis.
By early Tuesday, crews still had 100 miles of fire line to secure, though they were working in more agreeable conditions, with temperatures dropping back into the 80s.
"It looks a heck of a lot better today than it has in the last week," said Rodger Bryan, associate district field manager for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Winnemucca. "I think we're making some progress."
Firefighters hoped to have it contained by the weekend.
"A lot depends on if they can get their arms around the hot spots they've got going now," Bryan said.
Lightning sparked the blaze July 25 in a wilderness study area. Fanned by winds and fueled by triple-digit temperatures and tinder-dry vegetation, it quickly spread along the remote Nevada landscape, from desert mountains to desert valleys.
Just getting crews to the fire is a chore, Bryan said.
"It's logistically challenging. ... because of the size of the fire and the access," Bryan said. "It's pretty tough up here."
Because most of the roads are primitive, four-wheel drive trails, Bryan said it can take up to two hours to transport crews, equipment to fire camps, established a couple of miles from the fire perimeter and on the east and west flanks of the fire.
Though fire officials said there are large, unburned areas within the perimeter, the fire's overall size made it the biggest of the 46 large, active fires burning around the West.
Despite it's massive size, it's burning in uninhabited areas and no homes were immediately threatened, officials said. Ranchers have been moving cattle from nearby grazing areas.
One of the biggest concerns, Bryan said, is for the long-term health of habitat for various wildlife, including sage grouse, threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout, pygmy rabbits and big horn sheep.
"Once this habitat is lost, it takes year and years and years to recover," he said.
Elsewhere, firefighters anticipated containment Tuesday of the Basco fire northwest of Elko and the Taylor fire east of Tuscarora. Combined, those fires have burned about 73 square miles, or 47,000 acres.
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On the Net:
National Interagency Fire Center: http://www.nifc.gov
Map of current large U.S. wildfires: http://www.fs.fed.us/news/fire/firemap.shtml
National Weather Service's daily Fire Weather forecast: http://www.noaa.gov/fireweather/