Arizona Fire Now Heading to New Mexico

A total of 3,000 firefighters managed to contain a small slice of the massive Wallow Fire, but the inferno threatened today to cross the border into New Mexico.

Workers are using a DC-10 tanker air carrier from the sky and firebreaks on the ground in attempts to stop the blaze before it reaches the tiny town of Luna, N.M., seven miles from the Arizona border.

Incident Commander Joe Reinarz said Thursday that for the first time since the fire was sparked on May 29 firefighters were able to keep parts of it contained. As of Thursday, the fire had scorched more than 386,000 acres, with just 5 percent containment, according to the Associated Press.

"Saturday we can possibly look at getting the evacuees in Eagar, Springerville and Southfork back in their homes if the conditions are right over the next day and a half, two days," Reinarz said.

They are attempting to halt a repeat of the blaze that scorched Greer, Ariz., on Wednesday. New numbers released overnight revealed that 22 buildings -- many of them family homes -- in that town were destroyed.

Still in the fire's path are Paso Electric's high-voltage transmission lines, which supply electricity for hundreds of thousands of people. If these lines go, it may mean blackouts for many part of the region.

Alex Hoon, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told reporters that this fire is actually creating its own weather, forming a pyrocumulus cloud, or fire cloud, that is dynamically similar to a firestorm.

"The fire is so intense has so much heat that it actually forms its own thunderstorm at the top of the smoke plume," Hoon said.

These storms spur the fire on by creating winds that start new fires by hurling burning debris as far as five miles through the air. Near the New Mexico-Arizona state line, in the two small towns of Springerville and Eagar, residents were ordered out on Wednesday. Combined, the population of the two towns is approximately 8,000.