Sheriff's office: Flagstaff-area wildfire burned 30 homes

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Firefighters are bracing for the return of ferocious winds in the Southwest after a brief reprieve allowed them to attack flames from the air for the first time in days as a half-dozen large wildfires burn in Arizona and New Mexico.

The reprieve Thursday also finally allowed local authorities to enter rural neighborhoods near Flagstaff, Arizona, partially burned Tuesday by whipping flames 100 feet (30 meters) tall and determine that 30 homes were destroyed. Damage also included 24 properties with an unspecified number of destroyed outbuildings and a total of 109 properties were “impacted by the fire,” the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday night in a statement.

Authorities previously estimated that 30 structures were burned but had no breakdown of that figure.

More than 500 firefighters were manning fire lines in the two states and more help was on the way Friday when the largest type of management team is scheduled to take command of resources at one of the biggest, most dangerous fires near Flagstaff, Arizona.

Spirits were lifted Thursday as helicopters were able to start dropping water on that blaze for the first time. It has burned more than 32 square miles (83 square kilometers), forced evacuations of 765 homes and destroyed at least two dozen structures since it broke out on Sunday.

Aerial attacks also resumed in northern New Mexico, where at least one airtanker was able to join the effort northeast of Santa Fe — something that’s likely to be impossible on Friday.

Sheriff’s deputies called for additional evacuations Thursday of scattered homes and closed some roads at a big fire burning in a rural area southeast of Taos, New Mexico, where no structure damage has been reported.

But fire officials and weather forecasters across...