Western firefighters gaining upper hand

But blazes continue in Colorado, Arizona and Dakotas

Firefighter Harley Hill surveys the aftermath of a burnout on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation near Cibecue, Arizona.

HON DAH, Arizona (CNN) -- Exhausted firefighters were heartened Monday after taming nearly half of the massive wildfire that has burned more than 460,000 acres in eastern Arizona since it began two weeks ago.

"We're very optimistic," said fire information officer Jennifer Plyler. "We feel we've really turned the corner on this thing. The weather has been cooperating. We're feeling good.

"[But] we're trying not to get complacent because folks are tired right now."

By Monday, the Rodeo-Chediski wildfire -- the result of two fires that merged June 23 -- was 45 percent contained, and nearly all of the almost 30,000 residents who were evacuated had returned home.

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There is no projection for when the fire, which burned 463,830 acres, might be totally contained, Plyler said.

Residents of Heber, Overgaard and Forest Lakes remain evacuated but are expected to be able to return home by midweek, Plyler said. Nearly all of the 423 homes destroyed by the fire were in the Heber-Overgaard area.

Firefighters there and to the west were performing mop-up operations -- checking for smoldering embers or burning brush and removing other potential fuel to prevent spot fires, Plyler said.

"They're just trying to do some preventive measures," she said.

In Pinedale, volunteer firefighter Walt Hedges said the vacation community -- which was ordered to evacuate as the blaze neared -- was spared the brunt of the fire at the last minute.

"I myself had been praying to get this fire to the west of town," Hedges said. "And as it was about one-eighth mile out of town, we got a wind out of the east and blew it three-quarters of a mile out of town. We don't have extensive damage right through the center of town."

He said he and other volunteer firefighters managed to save 108 of the town's 120 homes, although flames destroyed the volunteer fire station.

The combined fire began with the Rodeo blaze that flared up June 18 north of Cibecue on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, 110 miles northeast of Phoenix.

Reaction to suspect's arrest

On Sunday, a man who has worked under contract as a firefighter for the Bureau of Indian Affairs was charged in connection with starting the Rodeo fire and one other blaze -- possibly with a profit-making motive.

If convicted of starting fires, Leonard Gregg, 29, could face five years in prison and fines of $250,000 for each charge.

Leonard Gregg, 29, who was arrested Saturday night in Whiteriver on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, was charged with two federal counts of setting the fires near his hometown of Cibecue, according to U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton.

Gregg -- who appeared Sunday before a U.S. magistrate in Flagstaff -- was not working as a firefighter for the bureau at the time of the blaze.

The government suspects Gregg may have started the fire to generate work for himself as a contract firefighter, Charlton said.

No details were provided on the second fire, which began a few miles from the Rodeo blaze. Gregg faces a detention hearing Wednesday.

The Rodeo fire burned more than 130,000 acres and forced the evacuation of the 7,700 residents of Show Low before merging with the Chediski fire June 23. The latter fire also began on the reservation.

Asked about the arrest, Bureau of Indian Affairs firefighter Willie Begay said, "All those firefighters who are out there fight fires diligently, and they fight to put the fire out."

Roy Hall, operations section chief for the Southwest Incident Management Team, said, "It [fire] endangers the lives not only of folks that live near the woods, it endangers the lives of our firefighters. That's the thing that firefighters will take very personally."

No other suspects are being sought in the Rodeo fire, Charlton said. The investigation into the Chediski fire that began June 20 is continuing. That fire reportedly started when an injured hiker lit a fire to signal to a helicopter for help.

Meanwhile, the Prescott and Coronado national forests in Arizona were closed because of the fire potential, and forests in other Western states also were off-limits as the July Fourth holiday approached, said Eileen Andes from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

U.S. Forest Service Director Dale Bosworth acknowledged Monday that this fire season is difficult, partly because of the Western drought. He said 90 percent of Western fires are started by lightning.

There are 29 large fires burning almost 1 million acres in nine states, nearly all in the West, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

In other Western blazes Monday, The Associated Press reported that Colorado fire crews contained about 40 percent of a 71,000-acre wildfire ripping through areas north of Durango. An 8,000-acre fire burned 30 buildings in Shields, North Dakota, where one home remains in the 15-person town, the AP said.

A fire in South Dakota's Black Hills had grown to 6,200 acres Monday, spokesman Ivan Irskine told the AP. It had been declared 35 percent contained Sunday after forcing 10,000 to 15,000 residents and tourists to flee the gambling town of Deadwood and the nearby gold mining town of Lead, according to the news agency.