The 32-square-mile blaze is one of a half-dozen major wildfires that have raced across Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado over the past week
FLAGSTAFF, Arizona -- 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 Flagstaff-area fire was expected to keep growing Friday, fanned by the wind, said Jerolyn Byrne, a spokeswoman for the team working the blaze. About 30 structures have been destroyed, but it's still unclear how many were homes, the county sheriff's office said Thursday. Wildfire has become a year-round threat in the West given changing conditions that include earlier snowmelt and rain coming later in the fall, scientist have said. The problems are exacerbated by decades of fire suppression and poor forest management along with a more than 20-year megadrought that studies link to human-caused climate change.
"The environment is not very friendly. It was blowing 70 mph. Rocks were hitting everybody in the face. It was very smoky and we were working directly in the heat," he said Thursday from the fire line."These guys are working incredibly hard. They know the values at risk. This is their community."
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