THE US: A man arrested for allegedly starting one of the two wildfires which merged into the largest in Arizona's history and destroyed more than 400 homes is reported to be a firefigher.
A federal source, quoted by the Arizona Republic newspaper, said that the unnamed man was a Bureau of Indian Affairs firefighter.
The man was detained on Saturday by agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation.
The so-called Rodeo fire began on the reservation in mid-June, merged with another forest blaze and spread rapidly, threatening the city of Show Low, whose residents have been forced to temporarily evacuate their homes.
The 181,000-hectare fire has so far destroyed 423 homes.
Show Low appears to have escaped incineration due to frenetic efforts by firefighters, but local officials say that the flames are now threatening the nearby town of Forest Lakes, which has about 600 homes.
In Colorado, firefighters were said to be close to containing the largest ever fire to burn in the state as Ms Terry Barton, who had been charged with starting the blaze, was released from jail on bail.
After a three-week rampage across 55,442 hectares of the state, the Hayman fire was close to being extinguished, said Mr Dave Steinke, a spokesman for the Rocky Mountain region of the US Forest Service.
About $29 million has so far been spent in fighting the blaze, which began on June 8th in the Pike and San Isabel national forests, when Ms Barton allegedly burned a letter from her estranged husband in a fire ring.
Later reports suggested that she had started the fire deliberately, so that she could extinguish it and be considered a hero, but those reports have yet to be confirmed.
More than 500 buildings, including 133 homes, were caught in the path of the fire.
In western Canada, forest fires threatened homes across Saskatchewan and Alberta as firefighters continued to battle the blazes, local government officials said. Residents of Prince Albert in the north of Saskatchewan province were evacuated from their homes on Saturday as the flames came within nine kilometres of the neighbourhood.