Inside The Inland Empire

Firefighters were finally able to contain a nearly 100 square-mile blaze after days of struggling in Southern California, but with rain in the forecast, there was a new fear of mudslides.

The National Weather Service issued a flood watch through the week in the Mojave Desert and portions of the San Bernardino National Forest, where nearly two weeks of fire left nonporous ash that could turn into mudslides with enough rain.

Forecasters said there was a 40 percent chance of thunderstorms Wednesday.

'The big thing is the weather,' said Rich Phelps of the U.S. Forest Service.

Cooler weather helped firefighters contain the blaze Tuesday night. It, along with a second fire, has charred a combined 131 square miles.

Skies were partly cloudy Tuesday and temperatures were some 20 degrees cooler than the triple-digit highs of last week.

Ignited by lightning July 9, the first blaze destroyed 58 houses and mobile homes, dozens of outbuildings and scores of vehicles. It was linked to 17 injuries and one death.

The second fire, about 24,210 acres and 38 square miles, merged with the other last week. It was burning in low-elevation brush and on rocky ridges dotted with pines killed by drought and a bark beetle infestation. It was 57 percent contained Tuesday.

On the northwestern edge of the fire front, an 800-acre blaze remained within a few miles of mountain hamlets but 'we don't feel there's any real threat,' Phelps said. 'We're not letting the fire grow. We're containing it.'

Elsewhere, a wildfire near the Nevada-California line was sparked by lightning Monday and had spread to 6,000 acres _ 9 square miles _ by midday Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of campers and a ranch and choking valleys along the eastern Sierra corridor with smoke.

Though the area is sparsely populated, fire officials worried that the blaze could threaten outlying ranches and homes. The blaze was moving in a northeasterly direction toward the scenic ranching community of Wellington, Nev., about 75 miles southeast of Reno.

Strong winds in central Montana pushed range fires past containment lines. One fire 25 miles north of Jordan was estimated at 31,000 acres _ 48 square miles _ before wind gusts of up to 50 mph hit that area, said Dena Lang, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management.

'You feel so helpless,' Lang said. 'Firefighters are out there working hard; landowners are working so hard.' Some ranchers are losing grazing areas because of fires, she said.

At least eight major fires have burned in southern and eastern Montana. Together, they had burned an estimated 345,000 acres _ 540 square miles _ as of Tuesday. Fire officers cautioned that acreage on some of the more active fires could change with better mapping.

However, firefighters were near containment of the Pine Ridge fires in south-central Montana. The fires burned about 121,000 acres, or 189 square miles.

In Colorado, lightning sparked a 20-acre blaze in Mesa Verde National Park, officials said. No archaeological sites were damaged or threatened, and most visitor services remained open at the park Tuesday, officials said.

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