Wildfire rages, doubles in size near college town

An Arizona wildfire doubled in size overnight into Wednesday, a day after heavy winds kicked up a towering wall of flames outside a northern Arizona tourist and college town, ripping through two dozen structures and sending residents of more than 700 homes scrambling to flee.

Flames as high as 100 feet on Tuesday raced through an area of scattered homes, dry grass and Ponderosa pine trees in a rural area on the outskirts of Flagstaff as gusts of up to 50 mph pushed the blaze over a major highway.

Weather conditions were more favorable Wednesday with light breezes before a return to stronger winds Thursday “approaching a critical level,” said Mark Stubblefield, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Flagstaff.

No significant precipitation is in the forecast into next week, Stubblefield said.

Coconino County officials said during a Tuesday evening news conference that 766 homes and 1,000 animals had been evacuated. About 250 structures remained threatened in the area popular with hikers and off-road vehicle users and where astronauts have trained amid volcanic cinder pits.

The county declared an emergency after the wildfire ballooned from 100 acres Tuesday morning to more than 9 square miles by evening and to 26 square miles by

Wednesday morning.

The fire was moving northeast away from the more heavily populated areas of Flagstaff, home to Northern Arizona University, and toward Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, said Coconino National Forest spokesman Brady Smith.

“It’s good in that it’s not headed toward a very populated area, and it’s headed toward less fuel,” Smith said. “But depending on the intensity of the fire, fire can still move across cinders.”

Authorities won’t be able to determine whether anyone was injured in the wildfire until flames subside. Firefighters and law enforcement officers went door to door telling people to evacuate but had to pull out to avoid getting boxed in, said Coconino County Sheriff Jim Driscoll.

He said his office got a call about a man who was trapped inside his house, but firefighters couldn’t get to him.

“We don’t know if he made it out,” Driscoll said.

Various organizations worked to set up shelters for evacuees and animals.

Residents recalled rushing to pack their bags and flee a dozen years ago when a much larger wildfire burned in the same area.

“This time was different, right there in your backyard,” said resident Kathy Vollmer.

Elsewhere in Arizona, a wildfire burned 2.5 square miles of brush and timber in the forest about 10 miles south of Prescott.

JAKE BACON/ARIZONA DAILY SUN VIA AP A wind-driven wildfire burns at the edge of U.S. 89 on Tuesday on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Ariz. Residents of more than 700 homes were forced to evacuate, authorities said.