EAGAR, Ariz., June 7 (UPI) -- The Wallow Fire has burned more than 311,000 acres in Arizona, officials said Tuesday, making it the second-largest in the state's history.
More than 2,500 firefighters are fighting the blaze, which has forced many people to flee their homes and left many more on edge as they await word on the fire's progress as it snakes erratically through vegetation, officials said, The Arizona Republic reported.
Fire officials said 10 structures have been destroyed and one damaged with 343 structures in danger, the Phoenix newspaper said.
The Wallow Fire is one of three major blazes burning in Arizona where the National Weather Service warned there would be high heat and winds gusting up to 35 mph into the night.
Related
Smoke blocked the sky and caused health problems, said medical personnel, who urged people with respiratory ailments to leave.
Communities that dot the woods of eastern Arizona have become smoke-blanketed ghost towns, The New York Times reported.
"It's hard to breathe," Judy Cline, who runs an antiques shop in Greer and was loading her possessions into her pickup truck Monday, told the newspaper. "It's like a thick fog. You can't see anything."
The Wallow fire, named after Bear Wallow Wilderness, where officials said they believe it started May 29, has sent smoke plumes elsewhere in the United States.
Kyle Fredin, an NWS meteorologist in Boulder, Colo., said high pressure was drawing smoke from the Arizona fire north across the Plains, reaching South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and southern Minnesota.
"Normally, you can see the forest for miles," said Kelly S. Wood, a public information officer for the Pinetop, Ariz., Fire Department working at a command post in Springerville, Ariz. "Now, there's just smoke."
Firefighters had trouble seeing the fire they were trying to extinguish, Wood said. High winds also make the fire unpredictable as it consumes acreage.
"We don't know exactly where the fire is at this moment because it is moving so fast and there is so much smoke it is hard to keep up with it," Joe Reinarz, the incident commander, told hundreds of Eagar, Ariz., residents Monday.
Pushed by winds, the fire advanced toward the New Mexico border, jumping fire lines and endangering homes, Reinarz said.
The fire is so unmanageable, firefighters hold little hope of extinguishing it and instead are just trying to contain it enough so that summer rains in July will extinguish it, the Times said.
