Town evacuations urged as forest fire spreads

Thousands of people were urged to evacuate three Arizona towns today as an out-of-control wildfire roared across 48,000 acres of forest.

Firefighters were unable to halt the blaze it scorched a six-mile-wide swathe through pine and juniper in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, at times moving from treetop to treetop.

The fire was one of 16 major blazes burning in the western United States. Overall, wildfires have scorched 1.75 million acres in the country so far this year.