SHOSHONE - Firefighters, farmers and residents braced themselves Saturday evening for a possible second firestorm to follow Friday's destructive combination of fire, wind and lightening.

It's a combination that left 45,000 acres of private and public land charred or burning by Saturday evening, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

Officials said Saturday evening that they still don't know how the 35,000-acre Red Bridge Fire started.

Late Friday night, fiery winds knocked down 45 power poles, burned cattle and destroyed thousands of acres of pasture between Jerome and Shoshone. However, firefighters acting with cattlemen managed to protect homes and other buildings. Only out-buildings were destroyed.

The fire abutted the southern city limits of Shoshone - with Red Cross opening a shelter at an LDS church in Shoshone - then receded.

"The city of Shoshone has been put at ease," said Mary Christensen, a BLM spokeswoman. "People have returned to their homes. Pretty much the danger has passed for Shoshone."

But Saturday night, BLM crews feared that resurging winds might rekindle the flames of the Red Bridge Fire in Lincoln and Jerome counties. Meanwhile, BLM officials were growing concerned that a 400-acre fire five miles east of Malta and a 10,000-acre fire south of Burley might soon merge into a conflagration.

On Friday, firefighters fought side-by-side with cattlemen defending several vulnerable ranches east of U.S. Highway 93 just south of Lincoln County.

No buildings burned, but at least a half-dozen cattle were killed or maimed, and thousands of acres of pasture were left tarred in black soot.

At one point when Roy Prescott, an owner of Prescott Land and Livestock, believed he and fire crews had buffered his property from the fire, winds tossed the fire back toward the firefighters, neighbors and ranchers gathered on the line. The flames overtook some pickups, bubbling the paint on one and cooking the undercarriage of another, Prescott recalled, as drivers reversed their trucks rapidly through fire and smoke.

"A man on foot could never get away from it," said Prescott, who estimated the fire's speed at 35 mph. "We had nine people out, four-wheelers, shovels, we had neighbors and friends. It tells you a lot about (this community's) character."

Prescott's ranch, which sustained considerable property damage, was not as severely burned as Notch Butte and Camp One allotment, which both sit between Prescott's ranch and the fire's origination point.

The Times-News was unable to reach Camp One by Saturday evening. Prescott said Camp One is an allotment with three pastures.

"Those were the most at-risk businesses and homes," said Tony Davis, fire operator supervisor for the BLM.

Jim Rupert, president of Notch Butte Grazing Association, said the association lost two calves and more than 10,000 acres of pasture - the entire allotment. The association owns a total of 335 cattle.

"If we can't find enough pasture we'll have to sell some of them (the cattle) because the price of hay is so high you can't afford to feed them," Rupert said.

Drivers on U.S. 93, who saw association members struggling to pull their cattle away from the flames, pitched in to help. On Saturday, rural firefighters were sent home to rest and to prepare for possible fires in their areas. Meanwhile, 10 engines arrived from Oregon to collaborate with local teams on the Red Bridge Fire.

"At this point, we are hoping that the lines will hold," said BLM spokeswoman Barb Bassler. "There is no reason for panic, but that could change."

Despite their losses, both Prescott and his daughter Katie maintained a remarkably upbeat outlook.

"We are lucky," Katie Prescott said. "It's a lot easier to replace cattle than people."

Staff writer Nick Coltrain contributed to this report.