Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley addresses the media from the fire media camp (Brandon Neuman/NAZ Today)

FLAGSTAFF (NAZ Today)– Day three of the Schultz Fire was a good one for both residents and firefighters.

Evacuees were allowed to return to their homes at around 8 am this morning.  Despite a few flareups, the fire only grew about 500 acres to 14,500 acres.  The fire is now 25 percent contained.

Firefighters worked hard to save Lockett Meadow today, and dropped ping-pong balls filled with flammable liquid to start a controlled fire designed to burn away fuels ahead of the fire and stop it from spreading into the Inner Basin.

Officials from the Type-1 Incident Command Team would not speculate how large the fire would grow to once the containment line was finished around the northern and western parts of the fire.

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley spoke to the media about how the San Francisco Peaks are sacred not only to the Navajo people. “The mountain is sacred to 13 other nations,” Shirley said.  He also mentioned that the Navajo hot shots were quick to respond to the fire. “They were some of the first ones here.”

Shirley spent the afternoon touring the fire area and at the Emergency Operations Center in Flagstaff with local officials.

Below is the video of President Shirley addressing the media:

Navajo Nation president Joe Shirley Jr. (AP Photo/Cable Hoover, Gallup Independent)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Navajo lawmakers voted Monday to place the tribe’s president on administrative leave, pending an investigation into allegations of ethical, civil or criminal involvement with two companies that had been operating on the reservation.

The Tribal Council voted 48-22 in favor of the measure during a special session in Window Rock, Ariz.

The vote to place Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. on leave comes a week after council members discussed investigations and alleged legal violations arising from tribal contracts with Utah-based OnSat Network Communications Inc. and Shiprock, N.M.-based Biochemical Decontamination Systems. Shirley’s spokesman says the council has yet to specify what the accusations again Shirley are.

The measure originally included tribal Vice President Ben Shelly, but delegates amended it to exclude him.

Council spokesman Joshua Lavar Butler said the reports the council heard last week in closed session revealed serious impropriety and violations within the executive branch.

Six others besides Shirley are targeted as part of the investigation, including his chief of staff and the directors of the tribe’s divisions of economic development, community development and public safety.

The council referred the reports on the two companies to tribal Attorney General Louis Denetsosie to consider the appointment of a special prosecutor.

Shirley’s spokesman, George Hardeen, said the council has not given the two-term president an opportunity to respond to the reports, nor have the allegations against him or others been made clear.

“All he’s hearing is hearsay,” Hardeen said. “He can’t dispute any wrongdoing when any particular wrongdoing has not been made clear to him, and he hasn’t been given a report. He hasn’t been told what he’s accused of.”

OnSat had provided satellite Internet services on the Navajo Nation. BCDS was created to seek large federal government contracts for the sale of metal fabrication products.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.