Yup....it's gonna be a LOOOONG fire season!

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azsnowman
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Yup....it's gonna be a LOOOONG fire season!

#1 Postby azsnowman » Sat Apr 03, 2004 8:30 am

Given the recent moisture we've been receiving, it's STILL gonna be a LONG, HOT, DRY, wildfire season I'm afraid :cry:


Sheriff worried evacuation orders will not be heeded




By: Donna Rescorla , The Independent 04/02/2004




'People don't understand what a fire is like. If they don't evacuate, it could be a major problem. If they say they will leave when they need to go, it may be too late. Roads may be blocked because of the fire.' - Sheriff Gary Butler
HOLBROOK - It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when.
Given conditions this year, Sheriff Gary Butler has that assessment of the possibility of a major wildland fire this summer - or even sooner.

Area fire departments have already had several experiences fighting fires this month, Butler pointed out.


"One off Porter Mountain Road was a good exercise with three fire departments and four other services up there quickly," he said. "It was caused by someone doing some unauthorized burning."


A second fire outside Winslow also brought crews from around the area. In that case, the fire sent down a canyon and burned a number of tamarisks (salt cedars) before being extinguished.


"We have to look at the possibility of another bad year," he said. "We are preparing for it because we know there will be another fire. We hope we will get on top of it before it gets out of hand.


"The Forest Service says we are 30 percent drier than the year of the Rodeo-Chediski Fire in 2002. The firefighters are all on standby and we have made our plans. Last year's Kinishba Fire was good because it shows we are ready."


Having the radios purchased with Homeland Security funds is a benefit this year, he said. All law enforcement and emergency personnel will have the same system so they are capable of better communication.


Despite feeling confident that firefighters and law enforcement are prepared for a fire, Butler has one large concern that involves residents.


"When we give the evacuation order, it comes on command of the firefighters," he said. "Those people who don't leave could be a problem. Our big concern is that a fire will start in a forested neighborhood. If the residents aren't evacuated, they could get in the way of the movement of firefighting equipment.


"They could endanger their lives, the lives of firefighters and the lives of their neighbors. The whole idea is to get the people out before we move equipment in."


The Citizens Alert network is up and running in the county as well as in all local municipalities except for Pinetop-Lakeside, Butler said. The system is designed to call all telephone numbers in a given area, giving a recorded message. In this case, it could let people know when to evacuate and even where to go.


"During the last fire we tested the system," he said. "Ours didn't work but we were able to use Holbrook's. Now we have the problems in our system ironed out. Theoretically, we could work all the calls out of the sheriff's office. We could pick one area and notify the whole region."


In the Pinetop-Lakeside area, he said, most people live in the county but work in the city so there has to be a way to contact them there as well.


Butler said he feels law enforcement and firefighting personnel are ready to go in, even if a fire starts in a residential neighborhood but if the people don't respond to evacuation orders, it could be much more difficult to fight the fire.


During the Rodeo-Chedeski Fire, Butler said, they were able to get all the residents out of Heber but the fire couldn't be stopped because it was too big before it got to the town.


In that fire, he said, many residents of Show Low and Pinetop-Lakeside were upset because they felt they were evacuated too soon and not allowed back until too late. He said that was out of his control, that officials at the fire command center dictated when the evacuation orders were given and when people were able to return.


However, he said, the evacuation timing might have actually helped save the towns by clearing the streets so fire equipment could move freely through the area.


"People don't understand what a fire is like," he said. "If they don't evacuate, it could be a major problem. If they say they will leave when they need to go, it may be too late. Roads may be blocked because of the fire.


"When we ask them to leave, they have plenty of time to get out. Law enforcement personnel are there so there is no vandalism and theft."


People may fear the flames but, Butler said, heat and smoke are just as dangerous.


At one point during the Rodeo-Chedeski Fire, he was watching the fire come up Juniper Ridge with others when a plume collapsed and smoke rained down. Although he was only about 20 feet from his vehicle, by the time he reached it, he could hardly find it because it was so covered with soot. He also had difficulty breathing. Even without smoke, superheated air can also kill, he said.


"We know we are going to have another fire," Butler said. "We have a uniform plan of action but we can't be 100 percent prepared because it depends on what the fire does. How effective the plan is depends on where it starts.


"In the cedars, it's easier to control because there's no crowning out. In the pines, the flames can shoot up 300 feet. The fire creates its own vacuum and the fire can be running at 60 mph along the tops of the trees.


"And just because the fire has passed, it doesn't mean you are safe. It could come around and still get you."


Although plans are in place for fighting any fire in the county, Butler said they are most concerned about those which start in the pines since flames can shoot up as high as 800 feet in the air.


Dennis :cry:
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#2 Postby azsnowman » Sat Apr 03, 2004 8:32 am

Wildfire season starts in the White Mountains




By: Terence Corrigan and Jo Baeza , The Independent 04/02/2004




LAKESIDE - As firefighters battle the state's first big wildfire of 2004, the Webber Fire, near Pine, officials are surprised at how early the forest fire season is beginning.
Lakeside firefighters responded to their second wildland fire of the month this week. It is the second one this month near Porter Mountain.

At about noon Tuesday, Lakeside crews responded to a small woods fire on Porter Mountain Road, a couple of hundred feet after the road turns to dirt. The fire was contained to approximately a third of an acre.


The fire earlier this month, March 16, was started intentionally by a private property caretaker to burn forest trimmings. The caretaker had permission to burn but not in the way it was done. The burn had been set on piles over 25 to 30 acres and was not being monitored.


What concerns fire officials about this week's fire is that there was no immediate evidence of what caused the fire. Fire officials are listing the fire as suspicious.


Given the wind and slope conditions at the scene, Lakeside Fire Captain/Paramedic Kerry Ross, said it appears the fire started approximately 50 feet off the road and spread to the edge of the road by the time fire crews arrived at the scene.


It took two hours to extinguish the fire.


Firefighters combed the dense woodlands across the road from the fire to check for embers.


Later in the day, Forest Service and Lakeside firefighters walked the area to try and determine the cause of the fire. Ross speculated that a possible cause could have been the presence of wood chips that may have ignited spontaneously, although he cautioned that this was only a possibility.


"Unfortunately, I think our wildland fire season is upon us," Ross said.





Pinetop fire


Chip piles that had been burned by the USDA Forest Service more than a month ago ignited a fire northeast of Pinetop March 30.


Stewart Bishop, Public Information Officer for Pinetop Fire Department, said he and Fire Chief Paul Watson were returning from a fire chiefs meeting in Show Low about 3 p.m. when they saw a column of smoke in the vicinity of Buck Springs Road.


They drove to the area and Watson was able to locate the smoke behind the electric substation along the power line right-of-way. The fire department brush truck and a hand crew came out to assist Stewart and Watson. The open flame fire was burning in an area that had been burned by the For est Service in January and February.


The fire department called Lakeside Ranger District, as the fire was on national forest land, and continued to assist the Forest Service with hand crews when they arrived.


Fire Management Officer Paul Garcia said the fire started in a pile of chips. The fire inside the pile kept smoldering in spite of a couple of snowstorms. Garcia said it must have found a path out of the pile through a root system or some other fuel and ignited the surrounding area.


The Forest Service brought in a bulldozer, built a line around the area involved, and mopped up the remaining fire. He said they will be monitoring the area every day.
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#3 Postby wx247 » Sat Apr 03, 2004 8:32 am

Hey Dennis... you guys had any problems with mud and such in the burned out areas from last fire season and the most recent fires that have received a lot of rain?
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#4 Postby azsnowman » Sat Apr 03, 2004 3:21 pm

No...not TOO bad, the forest service had time to spread 200,000+ LBS of grass seed over the burned areas before the rains got too heavy last year....now, there's all kinds of grasses, shrubs coming up and it's holding it's own!

Dennis
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#5 Postby timNms » Sat Apr 03, 2004 7:34 pm

It's getting pretty dry here too. As a matter of fact, while I was out working on fences today I noticed the smell of smoke. I looked toward the west and saw lots of smoke. About an hour after I saw the smoke, several fire trucks came by. They stopped less than a 1/4 mile from my house. The fire was across the road and out of view, but it was pretty close from what I could tell. Fortunately, they managed to put it out before it burned anyone's house.
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#6 Postby coriolis » Sat Apr 03, 2004 8:00 pm

Yikes, Dennis. Isn't this starting a little early? I hope that you make it through again. Is this normally a problem every year?
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#7 Postby azsnowman » Sun Apr 04, 2004 7:54 am

coriolis wrote:Yikes, Dennis. Isn't this starting a little early? I hope that you make it through again. Is this normally a problem every year?


This is "VERY EARLY" Ed! Normally, the wildfire season doesn't crank up until late May, early June, the seasonal fire crews, Hot Shots, Tanker Crews etc don't even get HIRED until mid April, early May. Yes....this is a yearly ritual, we get the snows in Jan, Feb, Mar then the spring winds kick in and blow like hades until June, by then, all the moisture is sucked out of the trees, duff and it's drier than a popcorn fart by then! But....it's no worse than living in Tornado Alley or along the coast line during "Cane Season!"...the only difference, we can't predict a wildfire!

Tim..that's a scary situation, glad they got an upper hand on the blaze before it crossed the road!

Dennis
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