GUNLOCK, Utah (AP) – About 135 people evacuated their homes Friday after wind-swept flames traveled downhill toward a tiny desert town in southwestern Utah.

Air tankers were fighting the flames, and no houses were in immediate danger, said Undersheriff Bart Bailey.

“We call the evacuation mandatory,” Bailey said. “That means we’re warning you of the danger, but we’re not bodily carrying anybody out.”

Gunlock was hemmed by wildfires on two sides, just weeks after escaping a brush with another blaze and months after being inundated by floods.

Elsewhere, residents of the village of Motoqua returned to their homes Friday after the threat from a 3,500-acre wildfire subsided.

The blaze destroyed one home on a ranch, but 19 other structures near the town were not damaged, said David Boyd, a fire spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management.

No injuries were reported. The residents had left their homes voluntarily as the flames approached, Boyd said.

In Arizona, a wildfire that has charred 70,000 acres in the central part of the state jumped a highway Friday where firefighters were hoping to contain it, forcing the evacuation of a handful of homes in the tiny community of Sunflower.

Another 350 homes near another side of the fire had been evacuated, but residents were allowed to return Friday.

Arizona firefighters also battled a 10,500-acre fire 15 miles northeast of Wickenburg in the Bradshaw Mountains. That blaze was 50 percent contained Friday, said George Taylor, a spokesman for the team fighting the fire.

The National Interagency Fire Center said 32 large fires were active Friday, mostly in western states. About 3.9 million acres have burned this year, compared with 4.6 million at this time last year.

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On the Net:

National Interagency Fire Center: http://www.nifc.gov/