A brush fire burning nearly 2.3 square miles near Phoenix, Arizona, has forced more than 250 residents to be evacuated from their homes.
The wildfire ignited on Sunday afternoon and quickly grew overnight. Tiffany Davila, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, said high winds pushed the blaze toward neighborhoods, forcing the evacuation of 132 homes. No homes have burned as of Monday afternoon, though the fire did spread within 100 yards of some homes.
Dried vegetation has fueled the “East Desert Fire” since Sunday, which has grown to 1,500 acres.
“Everything is pretty crispy out here,” said Davila.
Twenty percent of the blaze has been contained. Helicopters and airplanes have been used to dump water and retardant on the fire. Firefighters have been working to abide by social distancing guidelines but have struggled to remain spread out.
“We have 400 firefighters, so it’s made it too hard to keep them 6 feet apart,” Davila said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Another batch of wildfires raging through the Florida Panhandle earlier this month led to the mandatory evacuations of hundreds of people and destroyed dozens of homes.
