Home smokey home: Residents happy to return while crews keep fighting N. Arizona wildfire

Families return home but Ariz. fire still burning

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — After three days in hotels, trailers or friends’ homes due to a raging wildfire, about 1,000 Flagstaff homeowners and their families have started to return to their evacuated neighborhoods.

Crews had enough confidence in their fire lines to let the local sheriff lift the evacuation order Wednesday morning, but he warned residents to be prepared to leave again if necessary. The fire is at 14,500 acres and just 20 percent contained.

“I’m home! I’m finally home. It’s so exciting,” said Mary Oravits, who was among those who had to leave their homes Sunday after a forest fire started tearing though stands of ponderosa pine north of this city of 60,000 people and rising up the slopes of the nearby San Francisco Peaks.

“The day that it happened, it looked like it was coming over here quickly,” Oravits added. “I was really distraught. At first, you think you’re going to lose everything, which is hard to absorb.”

Jennifer Stanley and her husband returned home after spending the previous three nights in their camper.

After evacuating, they sat on nearby U.S. Highway 89 to watch the fire, which authorities believe was started last weekend by an abandoned campfire.

Nearly 1,000 firefighters still are battling the 22-square-mile Schultz fire, and their work is far from over. At least 10 miles of fire line still needed to be completed. Crews worked Wednesday to improve the line on the southern flank of the fire to keep it from surging back toward the city about five miles away.

To secure the line, crews were using several helicopters to drop material to ignite and burn out any forest fuels, said fire spokesman Eric Neitzel. Meanwhile, firefighters aided by air tankers dropping fire retardant were trying to stop its growth to the north.

Authorities said a campfire also was to blame for a smaller fire in southeast Flagstaff that broke out Saturday. Campfires will be prohibited in three Arizona forests starting Wednesday.

The southeast Flagstaff fire remains 80 percent contained at nearly 300 acres and a third fire 11 miles northeast of Williams also is 80 percent contained at about 3,400 acres. No major injuries have been reported and no structures have burned.