Firefighters are beginning to make progress on a wildfire burning in eastern Arizona that forced evacuations and torched nearly 9 square miles of land.

Weather in your inbox

Forecast Location

Sign Up

By signing up you agree to the Terms & Privacy Policy. Unsubscribe at any time.

Fire officials say as many as 90 structures have been threatened by the wildfire, reports My Fox Phoenix. Even though the fire continues to grow, firefighters have been busy setting perimeter lines during burnout operations that will help contain the blaze. 

Weather conditions are also beginning to cooperate, but still won't be ideal for firefighters.

"While the heat and low humidity continue, winds will be less of a headache the next few days, generally on the order of 10 mph or so," said weather.com senior meteorologist Jon Erdman. "One additional weather problem this week will be the threat for afternoon thunderstorms. These storms may produce little or no rainfall, but rather strong, shifting winds and, of course, cloud-to-ground lightning."

(MORE: What To Do If You're Caught in a Wildfire)

The blaze is now 5 percent contained and the other edges of the fire are "very secure," he said.

"There's a lot of smoke, but it's normal," Margaret Hangan, a spokeswoman with the Southwest Area Incident Management Team, said of the human-caused Arizona blaze that has been burning since last Thursday.

She said the winds were blowing the fire back onto itself to burn off more of the fuel. The eastern and northern flanks "are looking great" and crews "are pretty much in a mop-up," Hangan said.

Evacuations of about three dozen summer homes in the Red Cabin Ranch, Carlock Ranch and Whiting homestead areas remained in place because it was not yet safe to allow people back in their homes, Morse said. But there was no "imminent danger" to those structures, he said.

(MORE: Marking One Year Since a Horrible Firefighting Tragedy)

Arizona and neighboring New Mexico, where fire danger also remains high, have been waiting for monsoon season to develop and bring with it much-needed moisture. Large portions of both states have been dealing with severe to extreme drought.

Fire managers working a 2-week-old blaze on the Navajo Reservation near the Arizona-New Mexico line said Sunday that smoke from pockets of unburned fuel within the interior of that fire will likely continue until the area gets significant rain.

It was the same on the Coronado National Forest in Arizona, where crews have been managing a lightning-sparked fire that has blackened more than 16 square miles since being spotted June 17. They are using flames from the Oak Fire to improve forest conditions and acknowledge it will continue to smolder until the rains come.

Another blaze caused by lightning in northern New Mexico was putting up smoke Sunday afternoon that could be seen from as far away as Albuquerque. The 200-acre Diego Fire started earlier this week. Authorities said no structures were threatened, but structure protection crews have been requested.

(WATCH: Body of Missing Firefighter Found)

Crews were being released from the fire on the Navajo Reservation so they could help with other fires in the West, while the team battling the San Juan Fire in Arizona was growing. 

About 200 residents packed a community meeting Saturday evening, where incident commander Matt Reidy said forest thinning in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests helped firefighters establish anchor points from which to fight the flames.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.