A large brush fire damaged two apartment buildings in Alleghany County on Sunday afternoon and required the attention of 11 separate crews, officials said.

But fire crews contained the flames before greater damage could occur.

Chief Wes Walker of the Covington Fire Department said the fire broke out about 1:30 p.m. in a large patch of brush behind three buildings in the Dolly Ann apartment complex.

The nine-building complex is in the 800 block of Long Avenue, east of central Covington.

"Between the buildings is an area grown up with pines and evergreens," Walker explained. "You've got trees in there that are probably 30 to 40 feet tall. It appears someone improperly discarded a cigarette, and it got up into the pines."

Walker said that the trees are approximately 12 feet behind three of the buildings and when he arrived "we had flames probably 50 feet in the air."

He cited wind, a steep incline around the fire and low-flowing hydrants as factors that made the blaze harder to fight.

Walker said that, because of the hydrant problems, tanker trucks from Iron Gate, Sharon and Selma were brought in, and crews from Clifton Forge, Falling Spring, Boiling Spring and Dunlap aided in the effort. Representatives from the Virginia Department of Forestry and the Covington Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary also responded.

A helicopter fighting the forest fire on nearby Waits Mountain was en route to do a water drop on the flames, but the fire was contained before it arrived, Walker said.

The fire was under control by about 2:20 p.m.

Two firefighters were treated for minor injuries at Alleghany Regional Hospital and released Sunday, but none of the apartment residents was injured or displaced.

The heat melted the vinyl siding off two of the buildings and caused an estimated $35,000 in damage. Walker said the outcome "was about the best we could hope for."

"I still don't understand how we didn't end up losing the roofs on all three buildings," Walker said.

Earlier Sunday, about 10:30 a.m., Covington crews were called to the same apartment complex to respond to a much smaller fire. Walker said he believed that blaze had also been started by a dropped cigarette.