Winds forced some aircraft to be grounded Monday, Brent Olson, operations section chief with Northern Rockies Incident Management Team, said. Without that support, crews anticipate the Bighorn Fire will move east of Piety Hill.

 Rebecca Sasnett / Arizona Daily Star

Gusty winds Monday made it more difficult for crews fighting the Bighorn Fire as they concentrated on the eastern edge of the blaze where its spreading flames prompted evacuations over the weekend.

The winds forced some aircraft to be grounded Monday, Brent Olson, operations section chief with Northern Rockies Incident Management Team, said. Without that support, crews anticipate the fire will move east of Piety Hill and spread toward Redington Road, Olson said.

“We anticipated this,” he said. “We knew that the winds in the forecast today were going to be very high so we have resources there that are going to pick up the pieces as they can, even though we’re going to have some pretty hard-moving fire to the east and to the north.”

The area around Summerhaven and Willow Canyon have remained in a protected “green doughnut.” A section of fire on Sunday, however, crossed a fire line near Radio Ridge.

The incursion was quickly attacked by firefighters.

The Sabino Canyon area had remained inactive both Sunday and Monday.

The south, west and north edges of the wildfire have held up well.

Crews have been monitoring those portions of the fire and are working to repair damaged areas.

The Bighorn Fire reached 107,099 acres early Monday — more than 168 square miles — and containment was at 45%. There are 1,080 people assigned the fire.

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