YARNELL β A brush fire threatened structures Wednesday in the north-central Arizona town of Yarnell β the scene of a 2013 wildfire in which 19 members of an elite firefighting crew were killed.
Some residents on the town's east side were being told to evacuate their homes as a precaution, Yavapai County sheriff's officials said.
Authorities said the brush fire had grown to about 400 acres and its cause wasn't immediately clear.
It was burning south of the town and east of the site of the Yarnell Hill Fire in which members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots died when they got trapped by the flames nearly three years ago.
A brush fire burns in Yarnell, Ariz., Wednesday, June 8, 2016. The brush fire threatened structures Wednesday in the north-central Arizona town of Yarnell β the scene of a 2013 wildfire in which 19 members of an elite firefighting crew were killed. Some residents on the town's east and west sides were being told to evacuate their homes as a precaution, Yavapai County sheriff's officials said.
That lightning-caused wildfire destroyed nearly 130 homes in the area.
On Wednesday, some Yarnell homeowners said they saw smoke and received a voluntary evacuation notice on their cellphones.
A Red Cross shelter for evacuees was set up at Yavapai College in Prescott.
Arizona 89 through Yarnell was shut down as U.S. Forest Service crews did back-burns and dug trenches as air tankers dropped slurry loads before nightfall.
