After a fire at a ranch burning south of Patagonia in southern Arizona did not expand its 2,700 acres of footprint overnight, crews focused on wiping the remaining hotspots from the lights’ crash flames on Thursday, officials said.
Posted by the Arizona Forestry Department and Fire Department officials, posted by the Arizona Forestry Department, which said overnight increases in temperature and humidity will help significantly reduce fire activity throughout the night. Residents north of the fire were returned to “ready” status, lower-level attention after being told to be “set up” to evacuate on Wednesday.
Forestry department spokesman Tiffany Davila said that around 135 staff members who were burning in the fire are working in the fire, with flames continuing in drainage areas within the boundary, mostly mapped Wednesday afternoon.
“Fire behavior has been significantly eased since yesterday. The crew has made really good progress,” Davila told the Tucson Sentinel.
As of Thursday morning, nine engines and three forestry hand crews had been on fire. Alongside them are Hotshot crews, and the Ministry of Home Affairs is “firemen who perform the same duties as hand crews, very specialized, and generally placed on the sturdy terrain in areas that are most active and difficult in wildfires.”
“This fire is a typical Arizona desert fire,” Davila said. “Wind-driven fires spread very rapidly into grass and brushes, but in most cases they are more likely to be contained, compared to wood fires.”
Unlike the previous day, there were no heavy aircraft working in the fire on Thursday, but Davila said they are available if the crew needed them.
The wildfire that began after a lightning strike on Wednesday morning quickly engulfed 2,751 acres of San Rafael Valley, about 20 miles southeast of Patagonia, near the US-Mexican border. The wind blew fires north and ate grass and bushes.
Southern Arizona has seen more than four dozen fires in southern Arizona this year, according to data from the Tucson Intergency Dispatch Center. This tracks fires across the Coronado National Forest, the Bureau of Land Management’s GILA district, and goes beyond US fish and wild protected areas and national parking lots and public Parks managed.
In late May, authorities were able to defeat Greer’s fire. The Greer Fire burned 20,308 acres in the Apache national forest and evacuated forced evacuations in Edgar, Arizona and Greer, Springville.
Authorities were also able to contain the Cody fire that began on May 21 and burned 1,223 acres southeast of Oracle north of Tucson.
Pima County officials said the Tucson metropolitan area and the Santa Catalina mountain range are in severe drought.
The rest of the county, including Green Valley and Saharita, Avra ​​Valley, 3 Point, Tohono Odamnation and Ajo, are in extreme drought conditions, according to a map jointly created by the National Maritime and Atmospheric Administration, the US Department of Agriculture and the National Center for Drought Reduction.
