Firefighters kept watch for rattlesnakes Sunday as they battled two fires that had burned more than 30,000 acres near Reno and a Navy bombing range to the east.
About 500 firefighters had completely surrounded a 15,500-acre wildfire in the canyons about 8 miles east of Reno, and the smoke that was visible from the city had started to dissipate. Crews also had mostly contained the 15,500-acre fire southeast of Fallon that was started on the Fallon Naval Air Station by bomber training on Thursday.
A third fire that had blackened more than 32,000 acres of rangeland in the sparsely settled northeast corner of the state was fully contained Sunday, eight days after it was started by lightning.
Firefighters lit a series of back fires early Sunday to help cut off the primary flames and by midday the fire was 85 percent contained by fire breaks. A Forest Service spokeswoman said they hoped to have it extinguished by Monday night.
The Reno and Fallon fires were both caused by humans and investigators were attempting to learn if they might have been set deliberately.
Elsewhere in the West, a week-old fire in California’s Santa Barbara County had burned more than 13,000 acres.
