Arizona’s Wildfire Marches Toward Power Lines
Firefighters battling the Wallow wildfire in Arizona are working to bring more of the flames under control after beginning the day with about 6 percent contained.
The fire was burning about 430,525 acres as of 6 a.m. local time today, said John Helmich, a spokesman for the incident management team fighting the fire. That is an increase from a previous estimate of 430,171 acres, and Helmich said the acreage rose because of mapping corrections.
Containment operations are under way around the perimeter of the fire, Helmich said, and efforts are being made to protect electricity transmission lines. Staged burnouts have been used to fight the fire, including near Luna, New Mexico.
“The strategy at this time is to continue with the burnout operations to block the fire and there is some significant optimism today that the containment percentage will jump up fairly large,” Helmich said.
Conditions in the area remain dry and wind gusts may reach 35 miles (56 kilometers) per hour this afternoon, said Mike Pigott, a meteorologist with AccuWeather in State College, Pennsylvania. He said wind gusts may peak at 30 mph tomorrow and 25 mph on June 14, before picking up later in the week.
“Hopefully over the next couple days, as the winds continue to diminish, they can better contain this fire,” Pigott said.
The fire is about 15 miles away from a transmission line that helps bring power from Palo Verde nuclear plant to homes and businesses in parts of New Mexico and western Texas, said Teresa Souza, a spokeswoman for El Paso Electric.
Tucson Electric Power said today on its website that the eastern edge of the fire remains about 8 to 10 miles away from transmission lines that carry power from remote plants to Tucson, Arizona. The company said firefighters continue to work on a defense for the lines.
A government incident report yesterday said the blaze had destroyed 29 residences, while it threatened another 2,700.
To contact the reporter on this story: Edward Klump in Houston at eklump@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Susan Warren at susanwarren@bloomberg.net.
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