Bighorn Fire: More Evacuations In Catalina Mountains Near Tucson

TUCSON, AZ — Firefighters have contained 45 percent of the Bighorn Fire near Tucson, but evacuations continue in the Santa Catalina Mountains as the blaze continues to spread. On Tuesday, authorities in Pima County issued "GO" orders to begin evacuations in the southeastern Catalinas area around Redington Road.

The boundaries of the latest evacuation order (shown in red) are shown in the Bighorn Wildfire Alert Zones Map below.

Active "GO" orders are in place for the following areas, according the Bighorn Fire's Facebook page operated by the incident management team:

• Southern Catalina Foothills, Catalina Highway on the western border and Redington Road on the east.
• Redington community bordered by county lines on north and east.
• East slope of the Catalina Mountains south of the Pima County line and west of the community of Redington.
• Mt. Lemmon, Summerhaven and Mt. Bigelow.
• Lower Catalina Highway/Lower Mt. Lemmon Communities from Organization Ridge Road to South Willow Canyon.

Read also: NASA Satellite Shows Massive Scale Of Tucson's Bighorn Fire

Sparked by a lightning strike in early June, the Bighorn wildfire has burned within sight of Tucson for more than three weeks, forcing ongoing evacuations and covering more than 115,000 acres as of Tuesday. More than a 1,000 personnel are involved in the fire fighting operations; this week, those tasks have been "extremely challenged" by gusting winds.

On Monday, winds reached 54 mph at the top of Mount Lemmon.

During a Tuesday morning news conference, incident commander Scott Schuster said it was the windiest day ever recorded for June 29. However, he said that the dry and windy conditions are expected to dissipate as "monsoonal moisture" enters the area in the coming days.

"So far, we've survived two days of wind," Schuster said. "We're confident we'll survive one more."