SHOW LOW, Ariz (Reuters) – A massive wildfire in eastern Arizona that has displaced as many as 11,000 people calmed overnight and did not grow in size, with officials giving no new evacuation orders on Thursday.
But authorities were still struggling at zero containment on the blaze, ranked as Arizona's second-largest forest fire on record. The so-called Wallow Fire has blackened 336,000 acres and cut through the popular mountain retreat of Greer.
The total number of firefighters battling the fire, believed to have been started by careless campers, was raised to over 3,000 on Thursday, from 2,000 the day before.
Weather was expected to cooperate on Thursday with lower winds and temperatures and higher humidity, said Suzanne Flory, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman.
"There's still potential for growth, but the weather is going to be much more conducive to firefighting," she said.
Firefighters were able to protect most homes in Greer when the fire burned through the town on Wednesday, Flory said.
"They made a good stand and were able to protect the main area," she said, adding it is still too early to know how many homes burned there.
The blaze has crept to just outside of Nutrioso, Arizona, a tiny community made up mostly of vacation cabins, which was evacuated earlier in the week.
A pre-evacuation warning is in effect for Luna, New Mexico, and a handful of other tiny communities.
On Wednesday, authorities ordered the complete evacuation of Springerville and a third mountain community, Eager. The two towns, both situated near the New Mexico border, are home to some 8,000 people combined.
As many as 11,000 residents in all have been displaced in the White Mountains region, a popular vacation destination for Arizonans seeking to escape the summer heat, since the fire erupted on May 29.
On Wednesday night, crews set backfires in a bid to draw the flames away from threatened homes, and bulldozers continued work on a 10-mile-long buffer zone south of Eager between the leading edge of the blaze and populated areas.
Work also continues on a bull-dozed fire break stretching more than 10 miles into New Mexico.
More accurate thermal imaging conducted on Wednesday night showed the fire is not as large as authorities had originally thought. It has burned 336,000 acres -- less than the previous 389,000 estimate, officials said.
The state's largest wildfire on record, the Rodeo-Chediski fire in eastern Arizona, blackened almost 469,000 acres in 2002 before it was snuffed out.
(Additional reporting by David Schwartz: Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Jerry Norton)
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