The Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management has taken control of the 75-acre Gate Fire in north Scottsdale.
Crews are also working to manage two other fires near Payson.
McDowell Mountain Regional Park is closed, with no estimate for when it will reopen.
Four heavy air tankers were called in to assist with managing the fire. Crews halted the fire’s progress on Friday morning.
Also as of this morning, the West and Preacher fires near Payson had burned 1,566 and 3,167 acres respectively, with no containment.
Crews expected to start doing strategic burns after waiting out multiple days of high winds. The Tonto National Forest has closed land and some trailheads around the West Fire.
More Arizona Wildfires News
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Brian Fennessy has nearly 50 years of fire experience, which began in the late 1970s on elite federal hotshot crews and other wildfire teams. -
A group of mostly Western U.S. senators is demanding answers on why the U.S. Forest Service has fallen behind on efforts to reduce hazardous wildfire fuels. -
A group of U.S. senators say the Forest Service has fallen behind in wildfire prevention work like forest thinning which has been deemed vital to preventing billions of dollars of damage to regions in Arizona surrounded by national forests. -
Senate Democrats have asked Senate leadership to fund recovery from wildfires on federal lands. -
The Healthy Lungs for Heroes Act was introduced by Democratic California Senator Adam Schiff and Republican Utah Senator John Curtis. If passed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal officials would have one year to develop a plan to make "commercially available appropriate respiratory personal protective equipment for wildland firefighters and supporting staff in settings in which smoke exposure surpasses covered permissible exposure limits."
