Photo courtesy of Phil Perkins

SUSANVILLE, Calif.,-Firefighters continued to close in on the Rush fire. On Wednesday, they went after smokes and cooled them off in the northeastern flank of the fire. The weather was extremely dry, with several weather stations reporting only two percent relative humidity.

On Thursday, engines and crews will continue making sure the northeast flank is free of hot spots. The northeast part of the Rush fire is about 25 miles northeast and east of Ravendale, Calif., in Nevada.

Firefighters will continue making repairs from firefighting operations on the north flank and scaling down firefighting operations. The fire camp at Burnt Lake will close Thursday morning. Remaining crews will be based at the fire camp in at the Lassen County Fairgrounds in Susanville.

Many firefighters and equipment will be released from the fire Thursday and Friday.

On Friday, the Bureau of Land Management will open lands and roads closed for the Rush fire including the Buckhorn Road and Ramshorn Springs and Dodge Reservoir campgrounds. In addition, Washoe County will reopen the Buffalo Meadows Road in Nevada on Friday.

Officials with the Northern Rockies National Incident Management Team plan to declare the Rush fire contained by 6 p.m. on Thursday.

“It’s been a lot of hard work over the 257.5 miles of fire perimeter,” Doug Turman, the Rush fire incident commander said. “The crews did an outstanding job.”

The team plans to turn management of the fire over to a Bureau of Land Management fire team on Saturday.