Crews brace for strong winds, explosive fire growth in West
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Firefighters fanned out across blackened landscape in Arizona’s high country, digging into the ground to put out smoldering tree stumps and roots as helicopters buzzed overhead with buckets of water to drop on a massive blaze.
The work has been tedious and steady – all with the recognition that already strong winds will become stronger Friday and a shift over the weekend could turn the blaze up hillsides or toward homes on the outskirts of Flagstaff.
The 32- square- mile ( 83- square kilometer) blaze is one of a half-dozen major wildfires that have raced across Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado over the past week. Forecasters have warned that warm weather, little to no precipitation and spring winds create a dangerous recipe for wildfires.
Those elements are “pretty much on steroids in the atmosphere’’ for Friday said Scott Overpeck with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “And by that we mean they are really cranked up. Everything is overlapping together at the same time.”
More than 500 firefighters were manning fire lines in Arizona and New Mexico, with more help on the way by Friday morning when the largest type management team is scheduled to take command of resources at the blaze near Flagstaff.
It’s expected to keep growing Friday, fanned by the wind, said Jerolyn Byrne, a spokeswoman for the team working the blaze.
Neither officials nor residents have been able to fully survey the damage, as crews on Thursday were busy wrestling a spot fire and trying to keep flames from running up the mountainside. If that were to happen, it would mean a much bigger fire with long-term consequences such as erosion and flooding.
Still, spirits were lifted Thursday as helicopters for the first time were able to start dropping water on the flames. Aerial attacks also resumed on a pair of fires in New Mexico, where at least one airtanker was able to join the effort– something that’s likely to be impossible on Friday.
Sustained winds of 30-50 mph (48-80 kph) are forecast there Friday morning, with gusts from 60-80 mph (97-129 kph) in the afternoon from the Gila Mountains up through the Rio Grande Valley to neighboring highlands.
“There is high confidence that a widespread extreme and catastrophic fire weather event will occur on Friday,” the Santa Fe National Forest said Thursday evening in its latest update about a fire mostly west of Santa Fe.
“We are urging the public to stay vigilant, to continue to watch for expected changes in evacuation status and be prepared to leave in a rapid manner,” the agency said.
Sheriff ’s deputies called for additional evacuations Thursday of scattered homes and closed some roads at a big fire burning in a rural area southeast of Taos, New Mexico, but reported no structures had burned.