Sawtooth Fire

[whereveriroam]

I saw an ugly orange glow to the east from where I live in AJ (Silly Mountain area) this evening. I called it in and drove out to the Peralta School to see if I could see the glow. Yes I did, looks to be down by the Peralta TH.

[chumley]

AZFamily has photos of the fire burning Weavers Needle today:
https://www.azfamily.com/news/arizona_w ... 081c6.html

[wildwesthikes]

@chumley
As much as this sucks those were some pretty pictures and cool video with that topography.

[outdoor_lover]

They keep saying that the fire was in the Woodbury Fire Scar, and some of it appears to be, but Weaver's Needle wasn't in that scar and neither is Dacite Mesa or any of the Boulder Canyons. This totally sucks. I wonder how the Pine Tree is faring. If it's still there, I hope they feel it's worth saving....

[chumley]

Too bad there's not still a bench up there to burn.

[FOTG]

@outdoor_lover Does that surprise you? I keep feeling like I am the new anti FS tin foil hat guy, but I remember them telling us a couple years back that the fire on Graham was all good and just burning in an old fire scar too. I think Ash Creek and Webb peak would say otherwise...

[outdoor_lover]

@chumley
It wouldn't have burned, it would've melted, lol

@friendofThundergod
No, it doesn't. I think they are deliberately saying that it's in the burn scar so people don't realize how bad it is. The Graham Fire was just stupid and I agree with you totally there. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one at least early on, since resources were prioritized for the Ocotillo Fire. But again, if it's managed like Woodbury was, there's not much hope left.

But, with that said, things have been changing policy wise and we may be seeing that finally coming out. Manage, don't extinguish, especially Fires that were natural in nature and threats don't exist for dwellings or people. And speaking of threats to people, although they haven't had this excuse before, now, with the Pandemic, they may be doing things a lot more conservatively if they can.

I'll never be totally Anti-FS, I just can't do it. My Uncle was a Fire Fighter with the Forest Service for 50 years. 50! I grew up with Smokey Bear and I'm still a Fan. So I have to find some hope, some way to think that they just can't do things the way they used to. Some I agree with even if it saddens me, and some I don't, but I know money greases the wheels of any Department and I think the bearings haven't been greased in a long time.

[wildwesthikes]

@outdoor_lover
Yeah the news reporter didn't seem to understand what is actually on fire out there, kind of stumbling over his words. I just think the vast majority of Phoenix residents have no idea there are hiking trails that go past Fremont Saddle and the land behind it doesn't matter to anybody if it's not an accessible and overcrowded hiking spot.

[FOTG]

@wildwesthikes
I actually was going to say something similar. 99.6 percent of Arizona only cares if they can still hike to Freemont Saddle in the fall or do the Flat Iron. We are the only ones scrutinizing every word the FS says. lol

[nonot]

As I understand it, this is a naturally caused fire, in a wilderness, that is naturally burning....and people are complaining.

Let mother nature do her thing, she is far better at managing the land than the FS, owing to a few hundred million years more experience.

[chumley]

@nonot
Spreading quickly by burning natural, non-invasive, not-human-introduced species, and not affected by human-caused changes to climate?
Just playing devils advocate. But as with other fires, natural or not, people are saddened when they see the places they cherish damaged and changed by the forces of nature. No matter how natural or unnatural.

[chumley]

We'll really start complaining when the FS starts dropping incendiary bombs from helicopters ... you know, to reduce fuels ahead of the fire.

[nonot]

@chumley
There's no need, as the fuel supply in the lower Sonoran desert is quite low, the fire will burn fast and go out quickly. This won't drag on as long as fire in the eastern Superstitions. While they will focus on monitoring the Peralta area, and perhaps dropping retardant due to house proximity, the Superstition ridgeline and Canyon lake provide an excellent natural barrier.

[whereveriroam]

The wind was mostly calm today and aerial tankers and other flying fire trucks were being used. I doubt they saved much if anything, I’m by no means a wildland firefighter but my guess is they’re trying to keep the heat down to slow the incineration.

[whereveriroam]

I see a type I team will take over the controlled destruction of the wilderness tomorrow.

[rwstorm]

This forest management model for fire has been in use since at least the Horseshoe II Fire in the Chiricahua Mountains in 2011.

[outdoor_lover]

@rwstorm
Yeah, the Debate over "management" and "policy" started clear back during the Yellowstone Fire in 1988. My Uncle was livid, because well, he was old school. Used to be, if a fire started, omg, put it out now! Completely! No screwing around. That was my Uncle's life. Save the Forest! Smokey Bear became the Mascot. (My Uncle was actually on that fire in New Mexico). But they finally figured out that they weren't doing the Forest any favors and in fact, were contributing to bigger and more intense wildfires as time continued to march along and they continued their "put it out" policy. Yellowstone changed that kind of thinking and policy is now ever morphing to a more "manage it" policy vs a "save it" policy.

[Jim]

I don't lament the tide or the rain, but I do concern myself with beach front mansions mere feet from the mean high tide when a hurricane is barreling towards it's opulence, or a city built down stream from an ever expanding land of impervious surface is seeing the same. The management vs policy debate, whatever that may be, is more or less what I was getting at in my moderated Wilderness is BS thread. The concept as it relates to fire or management of the land is in both direct conflict with reality as it relates to natural phenomenon, as well as the history and pre-history of most areas of the continent.

Yellowstone may have been a watershed moment in the fire policy debate, but it strikes me as incredibly ignorant. Not on the part of an individual relative, but the public and media in general. Serotinous lodgepole is evolved to burn hot for reproduction. Anyone who visits there today sees the abundant reproduction. The silly arrogance of modern people in the 20th century to believe something as divergent as they are not a part of the natural world, yet they have a duty to protect the natural world from itself to keep it in the then present state, is pretty odd. New Orleans after Katrina makes sense. Yellowstone in a drought with dry thunderstorms makes sense, and early season thunderstorms in Arizona causing fires in or adjacent to an "wilderness" area also do.

Liz said I stopped short of calling wilderness racist, which I guess is sort of true. For as long as the ice has been in retreat, humans were here, doing what they saw fit. The Pleistocene mega fauna are gone, probably by human spear points. As long as the 1491 ecosystems were in place, and since, humans were modifying them in some fashion. Perhaps not in Arizona, though maybe, but in the east there is a strong chance that many pre-settlement ecosystems that "pioneers" encountered were a result of human activities, with more than a little evidence for the use of fire, plus plenty of other historical records of humans practicing various types of management or modification to produce food, maintain range or grazing and or forest conditions to make travel easier and to make game plentiful and hunting easier. These practices were almost continuous across the entire lower 48.

The only thing that has really changed, is the presence of exotics, especially the aggressive ones that carry fire. The biggest threat to the flora and ecosystem of the superstitions is not the Woodbury or the Sawtooth, or even a history of fire exclusion, it is these species that were not here before and bring fire to the base of saguaro and other fire sensitive species. Probably, unlike a ponderosa pine or mixed conifer forest, which can be managed in most areas and returned to something it would have resembled in 1800, desert areas in the relatively moist upper bajada after invasion by exotics can not be, or at least not without a lot of investment. Especially if the cactus are killed, grasses respond to increased fire frequency and intensity, and drought tolerant chaparral species proliferate.

No doubt opinions will vary, but the tide is rising, the sun is setting, and it's time to head inland and accept that the house is going to be washed away. I mean, unless the public wants to start to manage these lands, and not just with ridiculous demonstrations of militarized force dropping toxic slurrys of chemicals on the land to the tune of at least $22,000. a pop! That is about as far from environmentally friendly or wild(erness) as you can get.
https://wildfiretoday.com/2012/09/20/do ... a-bae-146/

You can also step back and let mommy dearest take her course with eons of experience. Clearly, most people don't like it, and you don't know what will happen. California's famous golden hills were once green with warm season grasses, and today are a mix of a few exotic cool season grasses. Pretty, but not natural. The same species of wild oats seen along I-17 on the mesa area near Sunset point being most common. Now, if virtually an entire state can have an almost wholesale replacement of species in it's grasslands, why would you expect that the wetter areas of the desert in 50 or 100 years will resemble what we currently have? Drive up HWY 87 to the area the fires broke out along it in the upper bajada where saguaro were and inspect those places.

[SuperstitionGuy]

@Jim_H
What was the purpose of that last post? I got lost somewhere and now I don't remember what it was about.

[Jim]

I enjoy a good running of the keyboard. But, also, I'm just making a few general points, as well as responding to a few things above. Sort a general long winded rant

[SuperstitionGuy]

@Jim_H
Well keep it down as most people dislike long winded Epistles. It has a tendency to put them .