Summary: “No major runs today,” was the good news firefighters got at their evening briefing Thursday.  The Rush fire has now burned into areas with less vegetation and more lava rock, 25 miles northeast of Ravendale, Calif., in the Buffalo Hills, a few miles inside Nevada.  In several places the fire simply ran out of “fuel” to burn.

Even this afternoon’s winds weren’t able to stir up major burning.  The potential for the fire to spread rapidly is still there, especially if winds line up with more heavily vegetated areas.

On the fire edge near Antelope Basin, air tankers dropped retardant and smoke jumpers parachuted in to work on stopping this part of the fire.  South of Burnt Lake, firefighters made good progress on building fireline.

Overnight, firefighters plan to continue burning out, building line, patrolling, and mopping up in the northeast part of the fire.

On the southeast edge of the fire near the state line, suppression-repair work continues.  Crews hope to finish this work on Friday and will move on to the southwest edge of the fire, east of U.S. 395 in California.

Area and Road Closures in Effect: Public lands bounded by Highway 395 on the west, the Sand Pass road and Nevada 447 on the east, the Wendel Road on the south, and Juniper Ridge road to Buckhorn road on the north are closed. The Buffalo Meadows road in Washoe Co., Nev., is also closed.

Remarks:   NOTE:  Use of chainsaws on public lands managed by BLM in NE California and far northwest Nevada is suspended because of extreme fire danger.  Fire officials remind residents and visitors that fire restrictions are in effect for public lands and national forests in northeast California and far northwest Nevada.  Campfires are permitted only in posted recreation sites.

Published: Tuesday, Aug. 21 2012 6:11 p.m. MDT

SKULL VALLEY, Tooele County — The blackened grass charred by a wildfire is so brittle it crunches like potato chips under the feet.

Where there was once forage, there is devastation. Where there was once promise of winter range to carry hardscrabble wild horses through the cold months ahead, there instead looms starvation.

This summer’s plague of drought coupled with wildfires is forcing the Bureau of Land Management to take emergency measures in many of the 10 western states where 31,700 wild horses and burros roam in herd management areas.

Here, on the extreme southern edges of the parched Skull Valley, the 22,000-acre Faust Fire has darkened the landscape. While Utah’s drought already left the Onaqui herd with meager pickings, the Faust Fire marched through last month relentlessly, stealing what vegetation would have been left this winter for the 250-member herd.

“The fire compounded already bad drought conditions,” said Gus Warr, head of the Utah wild horse and burro program. “Without the fires, they could have gotten along just fine.”

The wild animals have been able to weather the drought only because of the wet, lush spring of 2011, Warr said, with the herds surviving on last year’s vegetation. Wildfires have been the tipping point.

He points to some rolling hills at the base of the Onaqui Mountains called the Davis Knolls. It is here where the horses typically settle in for the winter, living off the perennial grasses and gulping down snow for water.

The knolls are burned and as far as the eye can see, so are the flat lands. In a few months it will be completely fenced off and reseeded, off limits to the horses and livestock for at least two years while the land recovers.

“It just miles and miles of fire that burned,” Warr said.

Another fire destroyed 46,000 acres in the management area of the neighboring Cedar Mountain herd. For them, too, a tough winter awaits because there are too many horses with too little remaining forage.

Next month, the federal agency plans two emergency “gathers” to cull animals from the herds and reduce their numbers. The hope is to water-trap the horses — lure them into a fenced off fresh watering hole — and remove an estimated 300 horses total from both herds. The removed animals will then be shipped to holding facilities in Delta and Gunnison, where many of them will be put up for adoption.