Woodbury Fire - Superstition Wilderness

[chumley]

Burning near Woodbury Trailhead. It has grown to 500 acres. I'll post official links as soon as they're up.

The smoke plume does not look good.

Inciweb

Updated 2019-07-16 123,875 Acres - 100% Contained
[ Woodbury Fire Perimeter :: map ]

[nonot]

The map suggests back burning is taking place using the apache trail as the northern fireline along a broad 15 mile stretch starting just east of fish creek to a bit past Apache Canyon Marina, looks like they finally decided on where to establish the northern edge and are seeking to contain it. The eastern flank back burns near Roosevelt appear to have been mostly successful in reducing its progression. I imagine everything remaining south of the apache trail will burn until you get near the dam, as that would make the most sense to me.

[nonot]

I'm guessing then you didn't mean to say you were driving on I17...

I just found the "smoke" map and I think the smoke was from the Woodbury fire as the Badger Springs wasn't burning anywhere that we could see.

[skatchkins]

I also live in Mesa, but I enjoy hiking in the desert the as much as I like hiking through charcoal forests.

[CannondaleKid]

I've hiked through a number of recently-burned areas over the years and have found plenty of beauty in the aftermath... different, yes, but beauty nonetheless.

[wildwesthikes]

I mean I just came back from a week in the Gila wilderness in NM and basically spent the entire time climbing over long dead ponderosas from the 2012 Whitewater Baldy Fire. The trails in the superstitions will still be there. You might just be walking over a lot of charred saguaros (pronounced sag-you-whar-oh's if you actually live in PA and come to southern AZ to make youtube videos to add a little variety to get views and also enjoy setting up your hammock up on the ground). But I digress.

[nonot]

Looks like the focus today was on back burning along highway 188 and FR 1491, along with a few small mop up back burns along the apache trail. The FR1491 back burn seems unnecessary to me? It also appears they reburned the area around Roger's Trough for some reason? Perhaps as part of mop up operations to get rid of the stumps, but someone with inside knowledge is probably needed to know for sure.

The remainder of Fish Creek Peak, Paradise Canyon, the north slopes of Fish creek Canyon appear like they will be claimed tomorrow. The cottonwood creek area will probably still smolder through the weekend.

I expect they will claim 75% containment by this weekend, and by the following weekend this will be all over.

[nonot]

I mean I just came back from a week in the Gila wilderness in NM and basically spent the entire time climbing over long dead ponderosas from the 2012 Whitewater Baldy Fire. The trails in the superstitions will still be there. You might just be walking over a lot of charred saguaros (pronounced sag-you-whar-oh's if you actually live in PA and come to southern AZ to make youtube videos to add a little variety to get views and also enjoy setting up your hammock up on the ground). But I digress.

Perhaps, but its not clear that this was necessarily a crown fire throughout the entire eastern range. And as you move west, I'd expect that the intensity would be reduced with many of the cottonwoods surviving. I'm honestly not sure if any live saguaros would burn, though some of the dead litter and cacti skeletons certainly would have provided fuel.

Will be interesting come this winter when people start to venture back and see how bad the damage is. The preliminary report posted in this thread suggests the reavis ranch area only was low intensity and most of the trees in that immediate vicinity will be fine. Low intensity fire is actually healthy for pine forests. I fear however, that some of the areas around pine creek/reavis gap would be more like crown fire status since that area was severely overgrown. Also, the catclaw will come back very hard

[Sredfield]

@nonot
I heard from a FS employee who has been to Woodbury TH area that the grass is already coming back in that area. This is consistent with what we saw a couple of weeks after the Sunflower Fire. Within a very short time, life goes on.

[chumley]

@Sredfield
Grass will be key ... and fast. I am so much more concerned with the lasting effects of flooding and erosion from storms this summer than the burn itself. Where a flood washes away the soil, regrowth will be delayed by decades.

[big_load]

@nonot
I heard from a FS employee who has been to Woodbury TH area that the grass is already coming back in that area. This is consistent with what we saw a couple of weeks after the Sunflower Fire. Within a very short time, life goes on.

I hope the toilet paper doesn't come back as quickly

[nonot]

It also appears they reburned the area around Roger's Trough for some reason? Perhaps as part of mop up operations to get rid of the stumps, but someone with inside knowledge is probably needed to know for sure.

I felt that I should follow up. Some unofficial information from Facebook suggests that several areas near Roger's Trough were reignited aerially to ensure several un-burned pockets would actually burn. Kind of like the campfire effect where you have to monitor a fire until you are sure nothing nearby will catch. Sometimes it is easier to burn the stuff nearby than it is to wait to see if what is burning won't spread.

[hondah35]

Will be interesting come this winter when people start to venture back and see how bad the damage is. The preliminary report posted in this thread suggests the reavis ranch area only was low intensity and most of the trees in that immediate vicinity will be fine. Low intensity fire is actually healthy for pine forests. I fear however, that some of the areas around pine creek/reavis gap would be more like crown fire status since that area was severely overgrown. Also, the catclaw will come back very hard

The problem is I can't think of one wildfire in central Arizona in the past 25 years that has been beneficial to the pine forests. I guess we will see in this case. Obviously life goes on, but every fire has robbed us of more and more of the variety in the landscapes in central AZ and each time the quality of hiking takes another hit.

[nonot]

There were several fires about 2 years back that burned the cabin loop area along ubar trail (I think...) that were just fine. There are many small fires each year, they just don't make the news.

[chumley]

I can't think of one wildfire in central Arizona in the past 25 years that has been beneficial to the pine forests

As nonot stated above, you can't think of them because the beneficial ones don't make the news. Only the destructive ones do.
Here are some photos of the Tucker Fire that he referred to: [ photo ]

A quick search found a few recent fires that were managed to benefit a pine forest:
Deer fire (Mogollon Rim)
Bristow Fire (adjacent to Munds Park)
Seep Fire (adjacent to Kendrick Park)
Platypus Fire (north of Sedona)
Tank Fire (Happy Jack area)
Sycamore Fire (northwest of Sedona)
Snake Ridge Fire (Mogollon Rim)
Horse Tank (north of Payson)

[Jim]

Add the Coldwater Fire to that. Despite the complaints about the smoke.

[hondah35]

A quick search found a few recent fires that were managed to benefit a pine forest:
Deer fire (Mogollon Rim)
Bristow Fire (adjacent to Munds Park)
Seep Fire (adjacent to Kendrick Park)
Platypus Fire (north of Sedona)
Tank Fire (Happy Jack area)
Sycamore Fire (northwest of Sedona)
Snake Ridge Fire (Mogollon Rim)
Horse Tank (north of Payson)

You guys are right, although I was kind of thinking of areas below the Rim. Of the areas I used to hike back in like 1990, the pines on Four Peaks are 85% gone, the Mazatzals 70% gone (excluding Ord), the southern Bradshaws 70% gone, the Sierra Ancha massively changed. And Southern AZ has also been severely impacted, I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that the Coronado NF has lost 20-25% of all conifer stands in the last 20 years. Sorry I know this is just being salty but we have seen a massive change in the landscapes of this state.

[kelly14]

@hondah35 You are not being salty. I agree with you. Our sky islands to a desert rat like myself are so precious. And when these sky islands which have limited forest to begin with burn and stands of pine are replaced with manzanita etc, I personally think is devastating. Now I’m all about fire and the benefit it has on the landscape but when these mountain ranges continue to lose more forest it does hurt my heart a bit....

[rwstorm]

@hondah35 @kelly14
Well said guys. No matter how good fire is for the ecosystem, some of the changes sadden me.

[Jim]

It seems like we have a dozen or so threads that are exactly the same as this one. Has anyone seen Letty?

There is just nothing you guys can say here that hasn't been argued already a dozen times over.

[Tough_Boots]

@Jim_H
Is this your first time on the internet?