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"A Very Chaotic Situation': Crews Tackle Growing Wildfires

Two firefighters monitor hot spots from a wildfire burning on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Ariz., Thursday, April 21, 2022. (Rachel Gibbons/Arizona Daily Sun via AP)
Two firefighters monitor hot spots from a wildfire burning on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Ariz., Thursday, April 21, 2022. (Rachel Gibbons/Arizona Daily Sun via AP)
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (FELICIA FONSECA and SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN)
Updated on

Flagstaff, Ariz. (AP) -- Destructive fires in the U.S. Southwest have burned dozens of homes in northern Arizona and put numerous small villages in New Mexico in the path of danger, as wind-fueled flames chewed up wide swaths of tinder dry forest and grassland and plumes of smoke filled the sky.

“It's a very chaotic situation out there,” Stewart Turner, a fire behavior analyst, said during a briefing Friday night on the edge of the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico. “We've had extreme fire behavior all day.”