The Wood Springs 2 fire arrived at Michelle Johnson’s home a week ago. Ash from the 13,000-acre wildfire that burned five miles away rained on her land, with thick smoke billowing above the house she shares with her husband and children.
“It would be like fog,” Johnson said. “You couldn’t open the doors and when I would come outside, I would start coughing.”
Johnson lives in Sawmill, Arizona, a small, rural community on the Navajo Nation in the north-eastern part of the state. The Wood Springs 2 fire is raging about five miles away, and in recent days it appeared to have calmed down, Johnson said. But as it bears down on Navajo communities in Arizona’s north-east, it is exacerbating the region’s already fierce challenges amid Covid-19.
Arizona reels as three of the biggest wildfires in its history ravage state
In Arizona and New Mexico, indigenous people have been dying from coronavirus at disproportionate rates. The Navajo Nation has been ravaged by Covid-19 since the pandemic began.