Fire crews in south-central New Mexico were spending another day today reinforcing containment lines around a 3,680-acre fire on Mescalero Apache land, fire information officer Bob Drown told The Associated Press.

"The fire behavior today is more of a smoldering, creeping type of thing with some of the larger fuels still burning on the interior of the line," Drown told the AP this morning. "The fire generally has not escaped the outer containment area, but is burning out to it."

The human-caused South Tularosa Fire, which began on Thursday about 2 miles southeast of Mescalero, was 45 percent contained as of Sunday, Drown said.

There were 468 people assigned to fight the fire, which was upgraded from a Type III to a Type I incident on Saturday, as well as three air tankers, three helicopters, 18 engines, nine bulldozers and seven water tenders.

No structures have been threated, Drown told the AP.

6:20am -- Mescalero Fire Burns More Than 3,000 Acres: South Tularosa Fire upgraded Friday to Type I fire; now about 35 percent contained.

About 200 people in the South Tularosa and Mudd canyons on the Mescalero Reservation were evacuated from their homes Friday but were allowed to return to their homes later that day as a new wildfire broke out in south-central New Mexico, the Alamogordo Daily News reported.

The South Tularosa Fire, which is believed to be human-caused, was burning at the center of the Mescalero Reservation and quickly consumed nearly 3,000 acres, according to the Daily News.

By Saturday, officials had upgraded the fire from a Type III to a Type I blaze and an interagency team took over the fight from Mescalaero firefighters, according to the paper.

No communities were threatened by the blaze, and no structures had been burned since the fire began on Thursday, fire information officer Karen Takai told the Daily News this weekend.

As of this morning, the fire had burned some 3,200 acres and was reported to be 35 percent contained, according to a report on KOAT-TV. 

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