Three hundred firefighters got the upper hand on a wildland blaze that threatened 400 homes near Gardnerville south of Reno while hundreds of other crew members continued to battle a pair of wildfires threatening dozens of homes and ranches Wednesday in the northwest corner of the state near the Idaho line south of Denio.
All three fires were sparked by lightning on Sunday and Monday, and the National Weather Service warned that another series of storms packing lightning was moving across the northern part of the state Wednesday afternoon.
In Gardnerville about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Reno, voluntary evacuations were lifted and firefighters said they had 20 percent containment of the Preacher Fire, which already has cost $1 million to fight, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center.