The Nation - News from July 4, 1988
A brush fire sparked by lightning in the Tonto National Forest, northeast of Phoenix, doubled in size to 5,760 acres and was burning out of control in “perfect fire weather,” officials said. No immediate estimate for control or containment of the blaze that erupted Saturday was available. A spokesman for the Tonto National Forest said that hot, dry and windy conditions were hampering firefighting efforts and that there were 220 firefighters from the San Carlos Indian Reservation, U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management fighting the blaze. Crews had constructed an 8-mile fire line, and a helicopter dropped “Ping- Pong balls of fire-inducing chemicals” to burn out the fire line.
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