Firefighters gain upper hand on grass fire near Lovington

April 30, 2011

lovington may have dodged a bullet tonight as a fast moving grassfire roared toward homes and even threatened the airport there. right now, it looks like the fire has missed the town but people are still incredibly anxious about this fire season - that seems to have no end. eddie garcia is in the newsroom with what's happening right now. the new mexico forestry service says this 500 hundred acre fire is zero percent contained but according to city leaders - lovington appears to be in the clear tonight. take a look at these photos a viewer sent us - that glow by the way is actually the sun-setting but you can still see how much smoke this fire produced. the forestry service says the fire was heading toward the airport - threatening several homes in the area. neighborhoods in the county and on the westside of town were evacuated as a precaution. there were no injuries or burned structures but as we've reported communities in southeast part of the state face a tremendous challenge this year. in fact, the city manager tells me lea county is threatened with the single highest fire danger in the entire state. we're told that highly trained hotshot teams are staying in the area throughout fire season