ST. PETERSBURG, Fla (Reuters) – Evidence of widespread fuselage cracks and fatigue were found on a Southwest Airlines Co jet that made an emergency landing in Arizona with a hole in the cabin, a U.S. safety investigator said on Sunday.

The incident on Friday prompted Southwest, the largest domestic airline by passengers flown, to ground planes and cancel hundreds of flights over the weekend so it could inspect its older model 737-300s.

Small subsurface fuselage cracks were found on two other planes, which may require repairs, Southwest said. Nineteen had been inspected and returned to service without any problems by Sunday.

Southwest anticipated 175 flight cancellations on Monday and hoped to complete the remaining inspections of 79 planes by late Tuesday.

The 737-300 represents roughly 20 percent of Southwest's all-737 fleet, the most popular commercial aircraft ever and a workhorse globally.

So far, the problem has been limited to Southwest, which paid a $7.5 million Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) fine for operating 737s without required fuselage structural inspections in 2006/07.

US Airways Group flies 19 737-300s and a spokesman said periodic inspections have turned up no fatigue-related problems.

Continental Airlines, now a unit of United/Continental Holdings, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp, all fly newer model 737 that are not linked to the problem.

United Airlines does not fly any 737s.

The FAA is assisting the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the Southwest investigation of Flight 812, which was heading from Phoenix to Sacramento at 36,000 feet when a 5-foot tear opened in the fuselage 20 minutes after takeoff.

The plane landed safely at a military base in Yuma, Arizona, minutes later.

NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said at a news conference in Yuma on Sunday that post-flight inspections revealed "widespread cracking across" the damaged area.

"Was the aircraft well maintained and should it have been maintained better? That is exactly why we are here, to look at why this problem occurred," he said.

A Southwest official said the airline was in compliance with inspection requirements for the plane.

"What we saw with Flight 812 was a new and unknown issue," said Mike Van de Ven, Southwest's executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Sumwalt said the tear occurred in a concealed part of the plane and could not have been detected by the naked eye. He said the plane was most recently disassembled for heavy maintenance in March 2010, which would have been the last time such a fracture could have been detected.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins and John Crawley in Washington; Editing by Greg McCune and Paul Simao)

DENVER (Reuters) – Gale force winds and drought spawned raging wildfires across five states of the parched Southwest on Sunday, damaging dozens of homes and businesses and forcing a Kansas town to evacuate, authorities said.

Wildfires were reported in Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Kansas. In some cases, firefighters were struggling to bring them under control amid high and shifting winds.

West of Fort Collins, Colorado a fire blackened 4,500 acres, destroyed 15 homes, and residents of another 336 homes remained under evacuation orders, authorities said.

The blaze, burning in mountain terrain about 65 miles northwest of Denver, is five-percent contained, Reghan Cloudman, a fire information officer with the U.S. Forest Service, told Reuters.

Wind gusts in excess of 90 miles per hour fanned the flames, which grew from 20 acres Saturday to more than 4,500 acres overnight, forcing the early-morning evacuations.

Most of Colorado was under threat from wildfires this weekend because of a lack of precipitation, high winds and record warm temperatures.

A snow storm moved into the area on Sunday, aiding the 250 firefighters battling the blaze.

"It (snowfall) has calmed the fire down a bit, but there are still many hot spots," Cloudman said.

Two air tankers and a helicopter have been called in to make fire retardant and water drops, she said.

High winds and extreme drought across Texas fed fires that scorched more than 7,000 acres on Sunday.

Fire officials evacuated 300 homes, a power plant and a sewage and water treatment facility as a 1,500-acre grass fire crossed a highway and burned outside of Odessa, 360 miles west of Austin.

The Texas Forest Service was using a helicopter and bulldozers to support seven other agencies battling the blaze, spokeswoman Jeanne Eastham said.

Crews had stopped the fire outside a water treatment plant just southeast of the city, she said.

"It has not crossed that road, and they're holding it there, at this point," Eastham said.

More than three quarters of the Texas was under severe or extreme levels of drought on Sunday. Wind gusts of up to 43 miles per hour fanned the flames outside Odessa in the afternoon, but conditions improved in the evening, National Weather Service Meteorologist Douglas Cain said.

In Oklahoma, more than 100 fires burned across the state, damaging homes near the panhandle town of Guymon and causing numerous highway wrecks, said Michaelann Ooten of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

In southwestern Kansas, the 1,100 residents of Satanta, including the hospital and long-term care facility, were asked to evacuate after an out-of-control fire burned about 1,000 acres and threatened 250 homes in the community, the local emergency management office said.

In New Mexico, a 2,000-acre grass fire in Ruidoso has forced the evacuation of some residents near the well-known Ruidoso Downs horse racetrack. Four homes were burned by the fire which grew rapidly on Sunday because of high winds, according to local media reports..

(Additional reporting by Elliott Blackburn in Lubbock and Steve Olafson in Oklahoma City; Editing by Greg McCune)

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A new reality show has gone viral on the Internet featuring a life and death struggle, a love story and a birds eye view of -- an eagle family.

More than 11 million views from 130 countries have been recorded by a streaming video of a nesting bald eagle couple in Decorah, Iowa. The first egg was laid in February, the eggs were incubated for weeks and the eaglets finally emerged.

The idea was hatched by biologist Bob Anderson, who installed a live video feed from an 80-foot aerie, now showing at http:/www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles.

Anderson, 60, is the executive director of the Raptor Resource Project, a non-profit based in Decorah. He attributes the popularity to the clarity of the feed which allows a close view of the majestic birds with white feathers on their head and dark bodies, and the tiny, vulnerable, fuzz-ball eaglets.

"It is the wonder of having modern technology linking to the wonder of nature, and once people watch it they take ownership," Anderson told Reuters on Sunday from his post about 100 miles northwest of Dubuque, Iowa.

The first egg was laid on February 23 in the nest that is about six feet in diameter and four feet deep. The first eaglet started to emerge from its shell on Friday. The second hatched early Sunday morning and the final egg should hatch in next three days, Anderson said.

"The world loves it," said Anderson, who now operates dozens of bird cameras across the nation and receives funding from Minneapolis, Minn.-based energy company Xcel Energy.

Viewers riveted by every move of the newly-hatched eaglets witnessed a near-tragedy on Sunday afternoon.

"One of the adults was picking up broken egg shells and picked up one of the babies and actually lifted it out of the nest bowl," Anderson recounted. "The baby started crawling the edge of the nest and looked like it was going to fall down into the sticks and get trapped," Anderson said.

As the tension mounted and phone calls and e-mails from concerned viewers poured in, Anderson considered cutting the feed.

"It was ugly and grueling to watch," Anderson said. "But after about 20 minutes the baby crawled back to its mother and crawled underneath her," Anderson said, exuding relief.

(Reporting by Eric Johnson; Editing by Greg McCune)