can come out of it. we ll see. hopefully. now to arizona. hundreds of homeowners who have ignored evacuation orders are now being forced out. and that s because a wildfire threatening their historic mining town nearly tripled in size in just 24 hours. as abc s ryan owens reports, it s a difficult battle for firefighters. reporter: the smoke can be seen from phoenix nearly 100 miles away. the so-called sunflower fire has already burned nine square miles. and it s just one of four fires now burning in arizona. the next days are critical in fire weather as far as the winds that are coming through. so we have a lot of concerns as to how the fire is going to move and what s going to happen. reporter: the gladiator fire in central arizona is the most dangerous. it s consumed more than 2,000 acres and has forced the evacuation of the historic mining town of crown king. it s getting kind of close. and so we don t even know if we can go back yet. reporter: with the blaze just a mi
of the faa. senate leader harry reid announced the deal to put 74,000 transportation and construction workers back to work. members of congress tabled their dispute on how to fund the faa before their summer recess began. the president praised both parties for coming up with the plan. some new concerns over the tainted turkey that s been sold across the country. its producer cargill says it believes most of the 36 million pounds is still in home freezers and grocery stores. much of it was sent to kroger stores which say it s all been removed. now there is evidence the government knew about the salmonella at cargill s arkansas plant for months and did nothing about it. the lingering heat spell tormenting millions of americans is being blamed for more than 100 deaths. it s especially overwhelming in dallas where there s been 35 days in a row of triple-digit heat. it s draining the power supply as abc s ryan owens reports. reporter: the brutal texas sun is s sting record highs this
also ahead in this half hour, the pilot of a small plane who splash landed in lake huron and had to tread water for 18 hours waiting for help. he s well enough to talk and we ll hear about his unforgettable ordeal. later this half hour, dogs love to run. you re about to meet an amazing canine who is so into running he s a star attraction at a marathon. see why this is our favorite story of the day. before all that the army says for the second time in two years one of their own was plotting a deadly attack on troops at ft. hood, texas. this time a clerk at a gun shop got suspicious and tipped off police. it happened in killeen, texas, near the army base. as abc s ryan owens reports. reporter: investigators say this young soldier has been battling the army almost since he joined it. i don t want to deploy because i believe i can t both deploy and be a muslim. reporter: 21-year-old naser abdo didn t want to fight in afghanistan. sources say he was more than
luggage actually turned up more than ten boarding passes, all in different names. he flew from new york to los angeles and was arrested after trying to board an atlanta-bound flight. he s now in fbi custody. we ll have much more on this story on gma later thi morning. a flying laboratory has been in the air, speaki of aviation, over the raging wildfire at the doorstep of the los alamos national lab. this sophisticated plane is just part of a massive monitoring effort to make sure there s no contamination. ryan owens reports from the front lines. reporter: on the front lines, firefighters are setting their own blazes. they hope to deprive the wildfire of the fuel it would need to jump the perimeter into america s preeminent nuclear weons facility. so far, their strategy is working. the governor herself inspected air samples. lots of smoke. no signs of elevated radiation. those results show that what we see in this fire is exactly what we see in any fire across new mexico.
not the same kind of deal for the folks this year in dallas, unfortunately. luckily the game will be played inside of a dome, but the fan activities outside, it s tough to get to. actually shut down some roadways earlier this week. the other big story worldwide is egypt. ahead, the president of egypt announced his intentions exclusively to abc s christiane amanpour. impressive interview. very fascinating. on top of that, the violent scenes in cairo and how journalists themselves have now become the targets. increasingly violent and frightening situation in that part of the world. they say more than 100 reporters so far have been detained or arrested in cairo. that situation getting worse and day 11 of the crisis. first, we get to the dangerous cold stretching all the way from texas to the great lakes and into new england. yes, it is early february. some of those places are pretty used to freezing temperatures. el paso is expecting a low this morning of just 7 degrees. as ry