“Instead of prolonging the number of days the Willard Fire produced heavy smoke, we worked through the night to burn a large area around the perimeter and stop the fire’s forward progress,” says Incident Commander Rigo Flores. Completing this effort in a few days will ultimately minimize the overall amount of time smoke impacts the community. “Last night’s smoke was the heaviest. It moved into Sedona as well as the Camp Verde area, but we can expect it to greatly decrease over the next few days.”

Beginning today, fire managers anticipate activity increasing on the Bar M fire southwest of Mormon Lake and plan to begin larger-scale burnout operations throughout the burn area to help maintain fire behavior and solidify perimeters. Smoke will increase in the vicinity. Most will disperse to the east and northeast with some settling around Mormon Lake Village overnight.

Fire managers on the Mogollon Ranger District plan to complete ignition operations on the General and Pothole Fires by mid-week, which should also result in decreased smoke by the weekend.