Fire crews making progress

ELKO -- Firefighters contained a complex of wildfires burning west of Elko and were making progress Wednesday on three other large fire complexes, including one that has burned nearly 900 square miles in northeast Nevada and Idaho.

The largest group of fires, the 879-square-mile Murphy complex, has been burning mostly in Idaho. But the complex's Rowland fire pushed south across the Nevada line early Tuesday to within a mile of Jarbidge, about eight miles north of Mountain City.

A mandatory evacuation ordered six days ago in Jarbidge was lifted late Tuesday, and the Murphy complex was reported to be 30 percent contained Wednesday.

"Jarbidge is not out of the woods yet," Elko County Sheriff Dale Lotspeich said. "But if the fire circles back, we'll have 24 to 48 hours to evacuate again. It took my deputies an hour and a half to evacuate Jarbidge last week, so I don't see a problem."

The road into Jarbidge from Idaho remained closed.

Lotspeich estimates that more than 1,400 square miles have burned this fire season in Elko County, which is just shy of last year's total of more than 1,550 square miles with about six weeks of the fire season still remaining.

"I've lived here for 55 years, and this is the worst fire season ever," said Marge Prunty, 80, who owns the Prunty Ranch in the Copper Mountains south of Jarbidge.

Firefighters saved the family's ranch home Tuesday, but most of the ranch's 1,700 acres of rangeland has burned, and the fate of 300 head of cattle and 100 horses grazing the land remains unknown.

Improving weather helped crews make progress on the Winecup complex in the extreme northeast corner of Nevada. It had burned 240 square miles and was about 60 percent contained.

"The cloud cover and higher humidity levels have lessened the chances of extreme fire behavior, allowing us to work directly next to the fire," said Kim Martin, incident commander for the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team in charge of that complex.

"We intend to get as much line built as we can while we have those conditions," Martin said Wednesday.

Firefighters have fully contained the 111-square mile Red House complex about 12 miles southwest of Carlin.

The 214-square-mile Antelope complex south and west of Battle Mountain was declared 90 percent contained, as was the 91-square-mile Hepworth complex burning all around Wells and the Cathedral Fire southwest of Ely that burned about six square miles.

The Hepworth complex included fires 10 miles north of Wells, 20 miles southwest of Wells, 15 miles southeast of Wells and five miles northeast of Wells.

The 92-square-mile Scott Creek fire west of Jackpot was 20 percent contained.