A wildfire on Mount Lemmon has died down and is mostly smoke, not flame, a Forest Service spokeswoman says.
About 90 to 100 firefighters, five engines, two water tenders, a 20-person hand crew using chainsaws, and a helicopter made good progress against the 5-acre, human-caused Miami Fire.
Nonetheless, crews were wetting down homes as a precaution, said spokeswoman Heidi Schewel of the Coronado National Forest. Residents heard that two streets were evacuated in the area of Summerhaven.
No structures were threatened, and the fire was not advancing toward buildings, said Deputy Tom Peine, spokesman for the Pima County Sheriff's Department, in an evening briefing.
The fire is 20 percent contained, and heavy mop-up is expected Sunday.
Once the temperature drops tonight and humidity rises, the fire will be easier to fight, Schewel said. About 40 firefighters remained on the fire lines this evening, and another 20-person hand crew has been ordered. The Forest Service assigned an incident commander. Crews included firefighters from the Forest Service, Mount Lemmon Fire District, Rural/Metro and Drexel Heights.
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The Miami Fire started about 2 p.m. Saturday on private land in Carter Canyon, above the village of Summerhaven, and spread within a couple of hours onto Forest Service land, Schewel said. The fire has to be human-caused, she said, because there was no lightning in the area.
The fire burned uphill away from homes and onto Forest Service land.
The Sheriff's Department closed the mountain's Catalina Highway at the base starting at about 3 p.m. There was no word on when it might reopen.
Afternoon photos tweeted by residents of Summerhaven showed billowing white smoke behind cabins and homes.
Linda Mulay watched the fire from her porch on the east side of the canyon where Summerhaven lies just beneath the mountain's summit.
Mulay had been at a women's club meeting at the Summerhaven Community Center when the fire started and heard that it started behind a house on Carter Canyon Road.
The fire was burning in brush along the western side of the canyon. She heard that homes along Phoenix Avenue and Carter Canyon Road were evacuated. Some evacuees were gathering at her home and she was making sandwiches, Mulay said.
The fire burned uphill on a slope that was devastated by the Aspen Fire in 2003. Two helicopters were dumping water on the blaze, she said.
"It's very, very smokey and I can see flames in two different spots," she said in mid-afternoon.
Mulay and her husband, John, lost four houses in the Aspen Fire, and built one large one to replace them.
Arizona Daily Star reporters Caitlin Schmidt and Tom Beal contributed to this report.
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