MONTEZUMA CREEK, Utah – The FBI will take control of the search for two fugitives spotted Sunday along the San Juan River near here, San Juan County, Utah, Sheriff Mike Lacy said Friday.

The transfer of control will mean a change in the way the search will be conducted, according to Dale Weiss, a special agent with the FBI’s Salt Lake City division.

"We’re not going to disappear completely, but we’re not going to do things the way he (Lacy) did," said Weiss.

Weiss said the FBI will not use special weapons and tactics teams to monitor and search the San Juan River valley, as Lacy has done for the past five days.

"We are not going to have a tactical presence there, unless we have details of hard, concrete evidence that would dictate a tactical presence," Weiss said.

Weiss said the FBI will continue to conduct a "standard fugitive investigation." Weiss wouldn’t elaborate on the details of the investigation.

The change of power came a day after a series of spot-fires set at the river’s edge failed to expose two fugitives believed to be hiding in the dense brush.

Lacy said his department will continue to help in the search, but only on an "as needed" basis.

Thursday’s fires burned themselves out early Friday morning after about a half-mile of tamarisk and Russian olive trees was burned along the river bank.

Lacy said teams were unable to light a fire in the exact area where Navajo trackers heard men’s voices and found tracks Wednesday, because they didn’t have the proper equipment to set a safe fire there.

Searchers using infrared and night vision goggles observed no motion in the search area Thursday night during the fires, Lacy said.

Special weapons and tactics teams set the fires as a means of exposing suspected cop-killers Alan "Monte" Pilon, 30, of Dove Creek, and Jason Wayne McVean, 26, of Durango. The two men have eluded authorities for 36 days after allegedly shooting Cortez police officer Dale Claxton and wounding two sheriff’s deputies before fleeing into Cross Canyon on May 29. A third suspect, Robert Mason, 26, of Durango, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound June 4 near Bluff, Utah.

More than 150 people participated in Thursday’s fire, he said, but by Friday the number of searchers had been reduced to 110.

Authorities had found no trace of the two suspects until a 9-year-old girl reported seeing two men matching Pilon and McVean’s descriptions trying to steal a water truck in Montezuma Creek Sunday night.

Lacy said that as each day passes, he grows less certain the suspects are still on the river.

"As time goes on, there’s less chance that they are there," he said. "There’s a lot of places they could have slipped out of."

Lacy said that before Thursday’s fire was set, helicopter crews flew over the river broadcasting a message that advised Pilon and McVean to surrender before the fire began.

Lacy said Friday morning that teams would continue to monitor the perimeter of the search area from the canyon rim; under the FBI control, that no longer appears to be the case.

No more fires will be set without federal assistance, Lacy said, because his teams do not have the equipment to safely set fires in certain areas, including the area where the tracks were found. Lacy said in order to set a fire in that area, teams would have to use a helicopter to drop balls filled with fuel and antifreeze that ignite when they hit the ground.

The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service often use the balls to start controlled-burn fires, Lacy said.

The BLM and the U.S. Forest Service had given their approval for SWAT teams to light the fires, Lacy said, but both agencies refused to provide men or equipment to start the blaze because they feared the liability associated with such an action.

Lacy said a larger, more searchable area could have been cleared if the agencies had provided the necessary equipment.

"If we get another sighting later on, it would be a lot less difficult to get in there if we had burned (more area)," Lacy said.

The BLM and the U.S. Forest Service would have supplied the equipment if a federal agency such as the FBI had taken control of the search before Thursday and had given their approval, he said.

Lacy said the fires were successful because they allowed searchers to see under thick brush previously hidden from view.