Crews get handle on Lincoln County fire

Firefighters made significant progress Friday on a three-day-old brush fire in Lincoln County, said Clifton Mehaffey, fire information officer.

The area burned by the fire, which is 15 miles southwest of Davenport, was estimated at 5,400 acres Friday night, almost double the size estimated on Thursday.

Mehaffey said the increase is more a factor of correcting an earlier miscalculation than of actual growth.

The fire was listed at 40 percent contained Friday night and many firefighters were expected to be sent home today, Mehaffey said.

“It looks like it will be a day of mopping up,” he said.

The fire started on private property near Wall Lake on Wednesday morning and has spread mostly on Department of Fish and Wildlife land.

On Thursday, it burned an unoccupied home owned by Fish and Wildlife, and two hunting cabins, Mehaffey said.

No structures were lost on Friday.

Firefighters, working in 95-degree temperatures, struggled on Friday to contain the southern edge of the fire, where the terrain was considered too dangerous to fight on the ground.

Two helicopters and three planes did much of the work on the southern edge, with firefighters stationed only near a home that was threatened, Mehaffey said.

Reports that a Bureau of Land Management firefighter suffered a broken leg were incorrect. The firefighter was run over by a firetruck Thursday, but the injured leg was not broken, said Mehaffey.