Fire officials said Sunday that a "very large" weekend fire on Mowbray Mountain, the third in north Hamilton County in the past three weeks, was mostly contained.
Emergency officials were alerted Friday about the fire near the Canyon Rim section of the mountain, said Meg Lockhart, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. But officials won't be able to pinpoint an exact starting location, cause or acreage lost until there isn't any possibility of its spreading, she said.
"Right now the task at hand is keeping the fire contained [and] manageable," she said.
Dryness helped the Mowbray fire spread, just as it recently did with a 200-acre fire near Sale Creek and a 50-acre one near Soddy-Daisy, Lockhart said.
"The dry weather conditions make it very hazardous," she said.
No injuries or damaged homes had been reported from the fire, said Shane Petty, chief ranger for Tennessee State Parks.
He said responders had established a circular "fire line" - meaning all flammable material is removed from an area - almost completely around the fire by Sunday evening. Crews also were performing "back burning" on Sunday, he said, which means they were setting fire to all material from the fire line inward.
"You want to have black all the way around that circle," Petty said.
A Cumberland Trail State Park trail that crosses directly through the fire has been closed temporarily, he said.
Canyon Rim Drive resident Gene Porter on Sunday expressed his gratitude, calling firefighters "great."
"We couldn't make it without them," the 67-year-old said. "If it gets through them, then nobody could have stopped it."