Two wildfires are burning in the Rincon Mountains about 12 miles east of Tucson, but fire officials are calling them both beneficial to the land.

Coronado National Forest spokesman Randall Smith says the 580-acre Cumero fire and the 160-acre Distillery fire are burning calmly and are acting like prescribed fires.

The lightning-caused blazes are not threatening any homes.

They’re burning between one and three miles apart from each other, but officials don’t expect them to merge because a major ridge separates them.

Smith said Monday that crews hope to fully contain the Cumero fire in the next couple of days, but will allow the Distillery fire to burn up to several thousand acres as it’s in very rugged terrain.

About 130 firefighters are on the two blazes.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Tucson News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.