US wildfires destroy hundreds of homes

Firefighters have moved across a mountaintop resort dotted with charred foundations to dig lines around houses spared by the initial rampage of a wildfire that destroyed about 250 homes near Tucson, Arizona.

Winds up to 60mph drove the fire through dry pine country and up the streets of Summerhaven – which had an estimated 700 homes and cabins and a handful of businesses before the blaze – in about an hour, reducing some homes to smoking rubble while leaving others untouched.

An official said firefighters never stood much of a chance in stopping the blaze.

“By the time this thing ignited, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion this thing was going to go where it wanted to go,” said Larry Humphrey, commander of the fire team battling the blaze on Mount Lemmon.

Humphrey said he expected the fire, which grew from an estimated 465 acres on Thursday to about 3,200 acres on Friday, to eventually burn tens of thousands of acres because there is no good place to stop it.

The fire started Tuesday in the worst possible place, he said.

“We had predicted if we had a fire in the area that we would probably lose Summerhaven,” he said.

“So unfortunately our predictions were pretty good.”

Firefighters had tried to protect the homes along a trail about a mile away, but had to pull back when the intense blaze jumped the path.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

The blaze consumed pine trees ravaged by years of drought and an infestation of tree-killing bark beetles. It is one of several wildfires in Arizona, where fire officials are braced for another busy year after seeing 630,000 acres burned in 2002.

Summerhaven had been what the name implies: a cool oasis in the pines, 6,000ft above and a world away from the desert city of Tucson.