Arizona fires: More forests and parklands to close Thursday

Southwest travelers take note: The wildfires sweeping through eastern Arizona and toward New Mexico have closed national forests and parks, along with forcing the evacuation of smaller communities. On Thursday, officials plan to close millions more acres of parklands because of the fire danger.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the main Wallow fire had burned 389,000 acres, according to InciWeb, an inter-agency website that tracks wildfires. Proposed closures listed on the Public Lands Informaton Center’s website for Arizona include these:

--Saguaro National Park will close trails and land in its Rincon Mountain District on the eastern side of the park as of noon local time Thursday. The Rincon Mountain District Visitor Center, however, will remain open. The closure doesn’t affect the park’s Tucson Mountain District and the Cactus Forest Loop Drive west of Tucson.

--Coronado National Forest is shutting its nearly 2 million acres in southeastern Arizona and part of New Mexico. The temporary closure includes all roads, picnic areas, campgrounds and trails. The Catalina Highway, also known as the Mt. Lemmon Highway, which leads to the peak north of Tucson, will be closed at night.

Also, Coronado National Memorial’s website says it will temporarily close all trails and picnic areas in the parkland as of noon local time Thursday. The park visitor center will remain open. And Chiricahua National Monument, which is within a mile of one of the fires, closed Friday and has not reopened, according to its website.

Fire restrictions, which prohibit open fires at campgrounds, are in effect at most other national parks, forests and Bureau of Land Management lands in Arizona.