Wildfire threatens more homes

TUCSON, Ariz. -- A windblown wildfire that already has destroyed more than 300 mountaintop homes pushed into a previously untouched subdivision, burning five cabins and threatening 60 others, a fire official said Saturday.

The losses occurred during the night in Willow Canyon, one of three areas in the Santa Catalina Mountains threatened by the 2 1/2-week-old fire that already had blackened 68,000 acres.

The human-caused fire began on June 17.

and destroyed 317 homes last month in and around the vacation hamlet of Summerhaven on Mount Lemmon. It was about 55 percent contained.

George Dyer and his wife, Henrietta Terrazas, bought a cabin in Willow Canyon in 1991. They didn't believe their cabin burned, but weren't surprised by this summer's fire.

"We thought it was inevitable," George Dyer said. "That thing is a tinder box up there."

The fire also was pushing toward the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains on the northeastern fringe of Tucson, and fire officials asked residents of about 50 upscale homes to evacuate so fire trucks would have the roads to themselves.

However, because of thin desert vegetation the fire posed little threat to homes in the foothills, said Gail Aschenbrenner, a fire information officer.

In northern New Mexico, calmer winds Saturday helped crews battling a mountain wildfire that had burned to within a half mile of Taos Pueblo and forced campers to evacuate.

The fire, which officials suspect was started by lightning, had covered more than 850 acres north of the resort town of Taos.

"The wind died down, and the fire died down with it," said Ignacio Peralta, Carson National Forest fire information officer, on Saturday night. "We're really seeing almost no wind at all."

No homes were threatened by the fire Saturday night.

Elsewhere, additional crews were sent to north central Washington to battle a complex of wildfires in remote, rugged terrain about 20 miles north of Winthrop. The largest blaze had covered some 1,200 acres by Saturday, authorities said.

In Southern California, firefighters subdued a quick-moving wildfire Friday night after it burned 1,500 acres of brush in Riverside County.

No buildings were damaged but 25 to 30 homes were evacuated as a precaution until the fire was contained, said Jane Scribner, spokeswoman for the Riverside County Fire Department. The cause of the fire had not been determined.

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On the Net:

National Interagency Fire Center: http://www.nifc.gov/