Apache sites in flames as wildfire rages

Up to 700 people have been evacuated from eastern Arizona’s Fort Apache Indian Reservation after a 2,000-acre wildfire destroyed sacred sites.

The evacuation was ordered yesterday after the blaze crossed a trigger point near two housing developments just north of Whiteriver, said Chadeen Palmer, a spokeswoman for the crew fighting the fire.

An Indian Health Service hospital was among the buildings evacuated. Only a crew of eight was left to staff an emergency room.

The fire, which burned out of control last night, was sparked by lightning on Sunday in juniper and ponderosa pines east of an area burned by a massive fire last summer.

The Rodeo-Chediski fire of 2002 burned 469,000 acres, destroyed 491 homes and forced 30,000 people from their homes. On the reservation, the fire charred sacred Apache sites and damaged the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s timber industry, which provides 60% of the tribe’s income.

Elsewhere yesterday, flames raced across densely timbered slopes near Yakima, Washington, kept evacuees from returning to about 20 homes and threatened 130 other houses. The fire jumped to more than 1,900 acres, firefighters said.

In western Wyoming, a section of US highway 26-89, a heavily-travelled route to Jackson Hole, was reopened after smoke from a wildfire lifted.

Nearby Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks were not affected.

So far this year, wildfires burning in the western United States have blackened just over a million acres compared with 3.2 million at the same time last year.