A smoky brush fire near a rural Arizona community forced the evacuation of a trailer park and some 300 residents as it burned three homes, officials said.
The Kearny River Fire was burning salt cedar trees in the dry Gila River bed near Kearny, about 85 miles southeast of Phoenix. The fire remained 15 percent contained at 1,100 acres Thursday evening. Three residential trailers and a few outbuildings have burned.
Officials say summer afternoons with high heat and wind don't help, but Kevin Bailey of Arizona State Forestry said there's good news.
"As of right now the fire has not moved out of the river bottom, it continues to move through that river bottom, which is where we're hoping it will stay," he said.
Bailey said crews are doing deliberate burns to eliminate fuel for the wildfire. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
State Forestry Division spokesman Mike Reichling said eary Thursday the fuels burning are similar to those in the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, which claimed the lives of 19 hotshot firefighters. About 200 personnel are on the scene and more are on the way.
“These salt cedars, they reach a certain ignition temperature and they explode like gasoline. The fires burn along the ground, they’ll get up into those trees, they’ll get super-heated and they’ll explode and then they’ll die right down," said Reichling.
High temperatures and low humidity could hamper efforts to contain the fire.
There were no reports of any injuries.
Arizona State Forestry officials said the blaze started around 11 a.m. Wednesday and its cause wasn't immediately known.
Fanned by wind gusts of up to 15 mph, the brush fire doubled in size almost every hour and threatened at least 25 structures — reportedly burning to within 40 yards of some homes.
"Right now as you can see this fire is pretty unpredictable. We're kind of at the mercy of what the winds are going to do," said Mark Clark, a spokesman for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office.
Authorities said one car and two shed-like structures were destroyed by the fire along with at least two homes.
Of the evacuees, about half are residents of a trailer park that also was evacuated in 2013 when lightning sparked a 500-acre fire in the same river bed.
State Sen. Barbara McGuire said the fire looked "like a war zone" when she drove into the town
"It looked like a volcano eruption. That's the kind of smoke there is," said McGuire, D-Kearny. "I have resided in this community for most of my life — 55 years now — and it is home to me, so I am concerned."
Heavy smoke closed a 4-mile stretch of state Route 177 in both directions.
KJZZ's Kathy Ritchie contributed to this report.
Updated 6/18/2015 at 6:15 p.m.