Arizona Burns, Largest Wildfires in the State’s History Engulfs thousands of acres

(CNN) -- One of the largest wildfires in Arizona history threatened mountain retreats and spread ash and smoke as far away as Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than 200 miles away, officials said Saturday.

Across the state, blazes have burned more than 250,000 acres.

More than 1,000 personnel were battling a large wildfire near Alpine in the east-central part of the state. The fire, of undetermined origin, had burned 140,000 acres by Saturday and prompted the evacuation of nearly 2,500 people.

It was completely uncontained Saturday afternoon.

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So far, around 2,500 have been evacuated, and the fire has grown to 140,000 acres.

AZ is just an hours distance from where I live.

It's weird that even where I live in Southern Cali, its very foggy.

I'm sure that it does not have todo with this, but you can see how foggy it is.

I wonder where this fire ranks on the worst fires ever. I remember fires in Mexico about 15 years ago, where the smoke could be seen and smelled by people in Central Texas where I live. Hope they extinguish it soon.

Yesterday the fire was reported at 186 square miles burning. Sunday evening It probably will be over 300 square miles That's right, Miles . not acres. It's going to much much bigger.

Official last. 144,100 acres burned = 225.156 mi²

Also the AZ Horseshoe fire ( 96.000 Acres burned) looks like it's about to merge with AZ Wallow Fire. June 5 Sat image.
Wildfire.com Lots of information on that site.it also show all the wildfires in the USA.moslty all of them in the Southwest US and Mexico



Specific information on this fire here update 3 hours ago.


This fire is growing by leaps and bounds. I'm in Albuquerque I can tell you the smoke was bad for two days in row; last night was just as bad. Today the city is still kind of hazy with smoke , only because the winds changed.

The local news stations are telling people the smoke should be gone by Monday ?, Hu? it not like they put the fire out yet. Only the wind changed. I hope the news media knows the wind always changes. these news station are clueless sometimes.

There is 5 tankers and 1,300 people fighting this fire as of now. This is a big fire, I thought the Colorado fire was big about 7 years ago. This going to make that look like a camp fire by comparison. This fire is expanding so fast , I never seen a fire grow this much, A person from one of the fire crews stated the fire is growing about 40 acres an hour, I met that guy at Sonic today, said he came home to take a break, lives in Albuquerque and was fighting this all week. He also mentioned this fire is no where near being contained, they need more tankers and there is just not enough to go around withl all the wildfires this year.

Albuquerque NM June 3 2011. Smoke and Ash.

I live in AZ (Phoenix) and this fire is not looking to be good at all (is there a 'good' fire?)

Our last BIG fire was the Rodeo/Chedeski fire back when Bush2 was screwing up the country.

I feel bad for everyone up north. I wish it would rain like mad for a few days up there.