Report: Federal firefighter started blaze
SHOW LOW, Ariz. (AP) – A man was arrested for allegedly starting one of the two wildfires that merged into the largest in Arizona’s history and destroyed more than 400 homes. The man’s name was not released, however, the Arizona Republic, citing a federal source it didn’t identify, reported he is a Bureau of Indian Affairs firefighter.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Harwood said Sunday morning that her office couldn’t comment on the arrest until after the man’s initial court appearance, scheduled Sunday morning. Ben Nuvamsa, BIA superintendent on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, said he had no details.
The fire the man is accused of starting broke out June 18 just north of the reservation town of Cibecue. It exploded up steep terrain, threatened the town of Show Low and overran two towns just to the west, then merged with a smaller fire that had been accidentally started by a hiker signaling for help.
Together, the fires burned 452,000 acres in the mountains of eastern Arizona, destroyed at least 423 homes and forced 30,000 people to evacuate nine communities.
On Sunday, the flames were still raging out of control on the fire’s western edge, and firefighters were struggling to keep them from bursting out of steep canyons and into the 600 homes of Forest Lakes, about 40 miles west of Show Low.
In Show Low, meanwhile, residents were back in their homes for the first time since June 22.
About 25,000 residents were allowed to return Saturday to the area after firefighters were able to hold the blaze to within a half-mile of Show Low’s edge. The town of 7,700 was untouched, but in nearby communities, dozens of homes had been damaged by the flames.
As residents poured back into the area, they found a patchwork of burned homes around the communities of Pinedale, Pinetop-Lakeside and Hon-Dah.
“I just kept praying and I knew it was going to be all right,” said Mary Capuozzo of Pinetop-Lakeside.
In nearby Linden, residents were still kept from the more heavily damaged subdivision of Timberland Acres, a square mile that had been dotted with log cabins, trailers and ranch-style homes.
Residents of areas farther west of Show Low, including Heber-Overgaard, where more than 200 homes burned, were still under orders to stay out, among 3,500 to 4,000 people still kept from their homes.
In other developments:
– Thousands of people fled a South Dakota gambling town because of a growing wildfire Saturday. The fire in Deadwood, a 1,380-resident town that attracts thousands of tourists to casinos on summer days, was 700 acres and growing, and had destroyed about 10 homes, said fire incident commander Joe Lowe.
– Several grass fires flared up in North Dakota, including a 20,000-acre blaze that burned about 30 buildings and dozens of vehicles in Shields, a town of 15 residents, authorities said.
The residents were all safe.
– Fire crews in Colorado extended their containment lines around a more than 71,000-acre wildfire. The fire north of Durango was 40 percent contained Saturday, up from 35 percent on Friday. It was threatening 152 homes and 206 other buildings, down from more than 1,000 homes a few days ago. Flames have destroyed 56 houses.
– Firefighters in Wrightwood, Calif., gained full containment Saturday evening of a blaze that destroyed three homes and burned across more than 6,500 acres after being started by a car fire along Interstate 15.
—
On the Net:
Arizona fire: http://www.fs.fed.us
3
ews
odeo-fire
National Interagency Fire Center: http://www.nifc.gov