A total of 690 households were ordered to evacuate and another group of households was informed that they may need to evacuate sooner or later, Coconino County spokesman Trey Williams told CNN on Sunday night. An additional 2,410 households have said they are preparing for the impending evacuation. As of Sunday night, no homes or buildings had been destroyed, InciWeb reported. Authorities arrested a 57-year-old man Sunday in connection with the blaze, the Kokonino County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release. Responding to a report of a fire on Snowbowl Road, lawmakers were informed that a white truck had been spotted leaving the Pipeline Fire area, the statement said. The deputies stopped a vehicle corresponding to the description and arrested the driver. The man has been charged with violating federal natural resources, the statement said, but regulations prohibit his name, photo or charges from being made public. CNN contacted the sheriff’s office for more details about the arrest. Less than two months ago, hundreds of households in Flagstaff were forced to evacuate due to a tunnel fire that burned about 14 miles northeast of the city. The fire, which started on April 17, eventually burned about 19,000 acres, according to InciWeb. A shelter for displaced families has been set up by the American Red Cross at Flagstaff High School Shinagua, which also hosted the Tunnel fire evacuation site. A total of 270 firefighters are battling the blaze, which has more than quadrupled in size since Sunday morning. As many as eight air tankers and five helicopters were deployed Sunday to fight the blazing flames, and more are expected to join the effort on Monday, according to InciWeb. An Incident Management Team is expected to arrive Monday to take over the management of the fire and provide additional resources and personnel, InciWeb said in a statement.
In 2022 the early period of fire is more active for a decade
As of Monday, nearly 30,000 wildfires have burned about 2.5 million acres across the United States so far this year, more than has been the case every year for the past decade, according to statistics from the National Interdepartmental Fire Department. This makes the early 2022 fires the most active in a decade and the third since records began in 1999, back on June 11, when 4 million acres were burned and 2.7 million acres in 2006, according to the NIFC spokeswoman Sheri Ascherfeld. “Climate change has brought longer seasons of fire, which we now call ‘years of fire,’” Asserfeld said. “We are witnessing the behavior of forest fires, fueled by severe droughts and strong winds that now characterize the summer months, which he has never encountered before.” Fires are now occurring in various parts of the country, burning more land on average each year and becoming more extreme, he said. President Joe Biden traveled to fire-ravaged New Mexico this weekend, where crews are still battling the largest and second-largest wildfires in the state. CNN’s Michelle Watson contributed to this report.
