Charles Molineaux: Fire creates ghost town

CNN's Charles Molineaux

SHOW LOW, Arizona (CNN) -- Fire officials said Sunday that two massive wildfires in Arizona have merged into one enormous blaze.

The National Interagency Fire Center said the Rodeo and Chediski fires burned together Saturday night and covered a combined 245,000 acres. More than 25,000 people have fled their homes.

CNN's Charles Molineaux reported Sunday morning from the city of Show Low, which was evacuated as the flames approached.

MOLINEAUX: We're looking at the fire camp here in Show Low, Arizona, and it's a hotbed of activity. But that's about it because the rest of the town has turned into something of a ghost town. Look at this plume of smoke -- you can see it all along the western horizon. That is about what we've been seeing all [Sunday] morning.

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[Saturday] night, this was a wall of fire moving toward Show Low at the rate of about one mile every hour. Some 25,000 people were cleared out overnight. It could be as many as 30,000 people evacuated from this area and surrounding towns because of what is happening with the Chediski and Rodeo fires. They did blow up [Saturday] -- went through every containment line firefighters had tried to set up in front of them -- and basically started moving toward this town.

They moved through a canyon that was considered a strategic point, and at that point [officials] decided it was time to start clearing people out of the fire's way. And, at the moment, this entire area has been evacuated, with the exception of this fire camp here as fire crews still try to get ahold of it. Weather conditions have been extremely uncooperative.

Meanwhile, people have been scrambling to get their lives together and get out of the fire's way, in some cases dealing with the painful decision of just what is it they can bring.

For some people, this is actually a second evacuation. There are a few of the evacuees overnight who were in other towns in the area that were cleared out before and had to evacuate yet again [Saturday] evening and into [Sunday]. Several small towns in this area were actually overrun by fire over the course of the last 24 hours.

Fire crews say they did have some luck in saving some structures. There's actually a good bit of pride attached to that.

The expectation is that Show Low could very well see flames coming in to the city over the course of the day [Sunday] and [Monday]. It's going to be a very big firefighting challenge for these crews. Of course, they are used to dealing with forest fires. But now they're going to be working with the local fire departments in dealing with houses on fire as well. And that is expected to start as early as [Sunday].

Meanwhile, the governor [Jane Dee Hull] is expected to arrive later [Sunday] morning. And another Type 1 incident management team -- the third on this incident -- is expected to be showing up [Sunday] as well to deal with what has turned into an enormous fire. The expectation had been this one could go to 300,000 acres. We may be there already.

CNN: What about the fatigue factor? This has been a long road already and a lot lies ahead.

MOLINEAUX: It has been, and fire crews are extremely vigilant about making sure that their people are on the job no more than, say, three hours, [followed by] one hour rest. Maybe it's two to one. But they're being very careful about that because that is something that they want to make sure happens if the crews can be effective in the long haul.

We actually will sometimes see crews around during the day because there are crews going out at night. They're certainly not working anything like 24 hours apiece, but there are crews working in shifts. When the fire normally calms down at night, this fire is actually extremely active. They have got a lot to do, and they're trying to take advantage of every hour they can.

Fatigue is a major consideration and something that a lot of these people are very much working on. But they're putting in long days nonetheless. And one element of a great deal of pride is, that with the exception of a couple of very minor cases of sunburn, they're dealing with no injuries among firefighters or the public from either of these two fires.