Heavy winds on Tuesday kicked up a towering wall of flames outside a northern Arizona tourist town, ripping through two dozen structures and sending residents of more than 700 homes scrambling to flee.
Flames as high as 30m raced through an area of scattered homes, dry grass and Ponderosa pine trees on the outskirts of Flagstaff as wind gusts of up to 80kph pushed the blaze over a major highway.
Coconino County officials said during an evening news conference that 766 homes and 1,000 animals had been evacuated. About 250 structures remained threatened in the area popular with hikers and off-road vehicle users, and where astronauts have trained amid volcanic cinder pits.
Photo: AP / Arizona Daily Sun
The county declared an emergency after the wildfire ballooned from 40 hectares on Tuesday morning to more than 23km2 by evening and ash rained from the sky.
The fire was moving northeast away from the more heavily populated areas of Flagstaff, home to Northern Arizona University, and toward Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Coconino National Forest spokesman Brady Smith said.
“It’s good in that it’s not headed toward a very populated area, and it’s headed toward less fuel,” Smith said. “But depending on the intensity of the fire, fire can still move across cinders.”
Authorities will not be able to determine whether anyone was injured in the wildfire until the flames subside. Firefighters and law enforcement officers went door to door telling people to evacuate, but had to pull out to avoid getting boxed in, Coconino County Sheriff Jim Driscoll said.
He said his office got a call about a man who was trapped inside his house, but firefighters could not get to him.
“We don’t know if he made it out or not,” Driscoll said.
Various organizations worked to set up shelters for evacuees and animals, including goats and horses.
The scene was all too familiar for residents who recalled rushing to pack their bags and flee a dozen years ago when a much larger wildfire burned in the same area.
“This time was different, right there in your backyard,” said Kathy Vollmer, a resident.
She said she and her husband grabbed their three dogs, but left a couple of cats behind as they faced what she described as a “wall of fire.”
“We just hope they are going to be OK,” she said.
Earlier in the day, the wildfire shut down US 89, the main route between Flagstaff and far northern Arizona, and communities on the Navajo Nation. The high winds grounded aircraft that could drop water and fire retardant on the blaze.
Arizona Public Service Co, the state’s largest utility, shut off power to about 625 customers to keep firefighters safe, a spokeswoman said.
About 200 firefighters were battling the flames, but more are expected as a top-level national management team takes over later this week.
The fire started on Sunday afternoon 22km northeast of Flagstaff. Investigators do not know yet what caused it and have yet to corral any part of the blaze.
Elsewhere in Arizona, firefighters battled a wildfire in a sparsely populated area of the Prescott National Forest, about 16km south of Prescott.
Cory Carlson, the incident commander with the Prescott National Forest, said on Tuesday afternoon the high winds have been the biggest challenge, sending embers into the air that sparked new spot fires near State Route 261, along with the demand for crews at other fires.
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