Eight-year-old Jaxon and his sister, 5-year-old Izzi, bounced around Grand Junction Fire Department Station No. 4 on Wednesday afternoon. Only hours before, they learned their dad, firefighter Wes Engbarth, could be gone for up to a few weeks fighting a sprawling wildland fire in Arizona.
More than 500 firefighters already have arrived to fight the nearly 20,000-acre fire burning southeast of Prescott Valley in Arizona. Roughly 1,400 residents of the nearby town of Mayer were forced to evacuate Tuesday, according to Arizona news reports. The human-caused fire started Saturday and has destroyed nine homes.
Twenty firefighters make up Grand Junction’s wildland firefighting team, so local officials are comfortable sending four firefighters to help, Evans said.