Jul 4, 2002 By Alisa Blackwood Associated Press Writer 3 min read

CIBECUE, Ariz. (AP) – After nearly two weeks in motels, shelters and the homes of friends and relatives, the last of the 30,000 Arizona fire evacuees returned home Wednesday. “We’re home. Thank God,” Kathie Cullinane said as she clung to her friend, Diane Pulliam, when the two met at Pulliam’s restaurant after returning to hard-hit Heber-Overgaard. Both women’s homes survived.

The fire, which has charred 468,000 acres, was about 80 percent contained and expected to be fully contained by Sunday.

Thousands of people living in the eastern Arizona mountains had already gone back to their homes in Show Low and elsewhere. But until Wednesday, 3,500 to 4,000 people from Heber-Overgaard and Forest Lakes were still waiting to return.

Residents at an evacuation center in Payson cheered when fire information officer Tim Grier announced that the evacuation order was lifted.

“You can honk at the firefighters, thank them for what they have done,” Grier said. “What are you going to see? Most of the areas may look the same, untouched by the fire. We do need to remember those of us who have lost their homes.”

The Heber-Overgaard area was among the hardest hit by the blaze, containing about half of the more than 400 homes destroyed by the fire. And many of the surviving homes are now surrounded by blackened trees.

The evacuation order was lifted on the same day that a member of the White Mountain Apache tribe, Leonard Gregg, 29, pleaded innocent to charges that he started one of the two wildfires that merged into the wind-driven blaze.

U.S. Magistrate Stephen Verkamp denied bail at the hearing in Flagstaff. Gregg’s trial was scheduled for Sept. 3.

Verkamp said he had received reports that Gregg could be suicidal and that anyone caring for him could be subject to reprisals from angry community members.

“It doesn’t seem prudent or wise to release him,” Verkamp said.

Gregg’s attorney, Deborah Euler-Ajayi, denied that his client was suicidal but said it was an emotional time for him. “It’s distressing. He’s frightened,” Euler-Ajayi said after the hearing. “He’s never been through this process before.”

Gregg also was indicted on chargers of starting a second fire on June 18. That fire was put out. If convicted of both counts, he could face 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

Court documents allege Gregg, a part-time firefighter, told an investigator he set the fire so he could get work on a fire crew.

In Denver, a federal judge delayed the Aug. 26 trial of Terry Barton, the former Forest Service employee charged with starting the largest wildfire in Colorado history. No new trial date was set.

That Colorado fire, which destroyed 133 homes, was declared fully contained after blackening 137,760 acres.

In other developments in the West:

– A fire in the Black Hills of South Dakota was 35 percent contained after burning 9,000 acres. Thousands of residents and tourists evacuated from the historic town of Deadwood were allowed to return, but people who fled nearby Lead were not yet allowed to go back to their homes.

– A firefighter was killed by a falling tree Tuesday while working in rugged terrain to help control a 73,000-acre wildfire north of Durango, Colo. Allan Wyatt, 51, is at least the ninth firefighter to die on the job nationwide this season and the sixth killed in Colorado.

– A 23,000-acre fire in northeastern Utah near the Flaming Gorge Dam was moving away from the town of Dutch John, whose 200 residents had been evacuated.

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On the Net:

White Mountain Apaches: http://www.wmat.nsn.us

Arizona fire: http://www.fs.fed.us

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National Interagency Fire Center: http://www.nifc.gov