"They are doing a wonderful job of protecting property while fighting this fire," she said.
She said smoke from the fire comes and goes near her home, a reminder of the threat from one of the worst wildfires in Arizona history.
Monday, after the visit by sheriff's deputies, McCardle said she was "crying and my brain felt dead."
"Today, I am preparing suitcases, and my mind is clearer," she said.
What has become known as the Wallow Fire was producing dense plumes of smoke that were visible from space and thick enough to reduce visibility to less than a mile in some places, the National Weather Service said in an air-quality alert Tuesday.
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New Mexico officials issued a similar warning for the town of Luna, according Terri Wildermuth, a spokeswoman for the Incident Management Team that is overseeing firefighting efforts.
The Arizona blaze is beginning to threaten neighboring New Mexico, and spillover smoke pushed by high winds has disrupted flights and prompted an air quality alert on the other side of the border, authorities said Tuesday.
More than 2,700 people were affected by mandatory evacuation orders, according to the American Red Cross, which sent its emergency response vehicle from Phoenix to the scene, four hours away, according to spokeswoman Nicole Underwood with the Grand Canyon Chapter.
So far, only 55 evacuees had checked into the shelter, she said, and not all of those were staying overnight.
More than 2,000 fire fighters are engaged in the battle against the Wallow fire, along with 20 helicopters, 141 fire engines, 46 water tenders and eight bulldozers, according to fire officials.
The blaze remains at 0% containment.
The National Weather Service warned critical fire weather, with low humidity and high winds, would continue at least through Wednesday in Arizona. The National Interagency Fire Center said similar conditions would heighten the risk of fires across the southwest, including Arizona, New Mexico, southeastern Colorado and west Texas.
Some Arizonans displaced by the fire have second-guessed their decisions to leave their homes. Displaced resident Patrick Tureson told Phoenix-based CNN affiliate KNXV that life as evacuee is "horrible."
"I don't have a lot of hope right now," he said.
Tureson said he and his wife, Randa, received a call from fire officials Sunday night recommending they abandon their Coyote Canyon home.
"We wanted to stay but ended up leaving because it was getting worse and worse," Tureson told KNXV. "That fire was headed right towards me. It's just a bad situation."
The Turesons now live in a trailer behind Jesus First Community Church in Springerville, where the advancing fire could force them to relocate a second time.
The Wallow fire, currently ranked as the third largest in Arizona history, has scorched 311,481 acres so far along the state's eastern border. However, low humidity and high winds are fueling fires elsewhere in the state.
That includes three separate blazes that have consumed 165,017 acres in the Coronado National Forest, one of which has been burning since May 8, according to InciWeb, an Internet state-by-state database of active wildfires and other disasters.
The National Weather Service lifted a red-flag alert and a fire-weather watch for most of northern Arizona on Tuesday. However, conditions in the Wallow fire zone might not be much different than they were Monday, according to Weather Service meteorologist Robert Bohlin in Flagstaff. The forecast calls for winds of up to 30 mph in eastern Arizona, which could spark spot fires outside the fire zone.
The winds have hampered the efforts of firefighters who've come to Arizona from across the United States to help battle the blaze. That includes grounding planes that otherwise could be used to douse the flames from the air, Wildermuth said.
On Monday, the size of the Wallow fire jumped 21% as it spread to more than 40,000 acres.
"We had a hard day today," Joe Reinarz, an incident commander, told those attending a town hall meeting in Greer on Monday. "I don't know exactly where that fire is at this moment, because it is moving so fast."
The eastern Arizona wildfire, which began May 29, has forced the closure of the Apache National Forest and prompted the evacuation of around 3,000 people, said Mark Weldon of the Arizona Red Cross.
Some 2,000 of those are in Alpine, about 700 are in Greer, 200 to 300 are in Nutrioso, and fewer than 100 are in Sunrise.
"Tomorrow, (the wind) is supposed to pick back up all through Thursday," Reinarz said. "We've got two or three days ahead ... that will try all of us."
The U.S. Forest Service said the fire is the fourth largest in Arizona's history, but Brad Pitassi of the incident management team said it is the third largest. While there have been no significant injuries so far, officials and area residents complained of heavy smoke that has blanketed the area like fog.
The fire has bedeviled fire crews with its unpredictable path, thanks to wind gusts that have carried burning embers up to three miles.
Apache County Deputy Chief Sheriff Brannon Eagar on Monday evening urged people in the area, even if they haven't been ordered to evacuate yet, to get ready to leave.
"They can't predict how fast it's going to go," Eagar said at the town hall event in Greer. "So make sure, please, you get ready.
"If I can convince anybody, please go. It'll make your life so much easier," he added. "This thing is huge."
COMMENT: I think this is happening constantly in Arizona and all the states from this zone of the country, always the firefighters make a big effort to stop the wildfires but it always produce disasters as little or big they are but they produce them.
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