Huge Fires Burn Along U.S.-Mexico Border

Hundreds of U.S. and Mexican firefighters on Sunday battled fires that burned thousands of acres of brush and timber on both sides of the border and raced across an Apache Indian reservation, officials said.

A forest fire that started in Mexico charred 6,000 acres, about 3,500 on the U.S. side of the border near Nicksville, and damaged two structures in a park picnic area, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Jim Payne in Phoenix.

Payne called the blaze “a raging monster out of control,” and said it had threatened ranch homes in the Coronado National Monument, about 50 miles south of Tucson, before they were saved by crews who started backfires.

Nearly 200 miles north, a second fire that was sparked by lightning Friday on a reservation near Cibecue had burned more than 500 acres of timber and brush by early Sunday, Payne said.