LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Firefighters stopped wildfires short of a southern Nevada railroad town and a Utah hamlet on Thursday, and reported the huge blazes burning in a vast area of desert tortoise and bighorn sheep habitat were 51 percent contained.
Favorable weather was predicted through the weekend, and fire lines bulldozed through the mountains were holding about nine miles south of the town of Caliente, said David Chevalier, U.S. Forest Service spokesman on the Mesquite and South Desert fires that are burning northeast of Las Vegas.
''We've been real lucky. No structures lost, and no major injuries other than one broken ankle,'' Chevalier said as the number of firefighters was reduced in the fire zone that covers more than 500,000 acres of mostly uninhabited land. Officials have estimated that as much as half that area burned.
''We've got the north end anchored off,'' Chevalier said. ''It's not going to get to Caliente.''
More than 900 firefighters from Nevada and seven other Western states remained, including some in an area less than a mile from the 12-home hamlet of Motoqua, Utah.
''Motoqua is not threatened now,'' Chevalier said.
Six air tankers and seven helicopters were aiding efforts to quell the five lightning-sparked blazes still burning in a wide area of Clark and Lincoln counties, including one in the Delamar Mountains and another near Mormon Peak east of Lake Mead in Nevada.
Various blazes have merged as they burned through brittle desert grasses, mesquite, Joshua trees and mountain pines in an area that includes habitat of bighorn sheep and the federally protected desert tortoise.
Of a firefighting force that had reached 1,019, one suffered a broken ankle earlier in the week, and a smokejumper hurt his hip last week parachuting into the area. Estimated costs to fight the lightning-sparked fires have topped $4.2 million.
In Las Vegas, about 110 miles south of Caliente, Clark County air quality officials were monitoring the possible health effects of a smoky haze from southern Nevada and Arizona wildfires.
South of Las Vegas, full containment was expected Sunday on a separate 33,569-acre fire around Goodsprings, where 140 firefighters remained on the line, according to Forest Service spokeswoman Pam Sichting. No serious injuries were reported and no structures were damaged. Firefighting costs were estimated at almost $1.7 million.
