"Wallow Fire" in Bear Wallow Wilderness

[azbackpackr]

Lots of activity in Springerville this morning, with the Prescott Hot Shots arriving at Safeway for a snack, and other buses full of firefighters seen on the highway heading for the "Wallow Fire" in Bear Wallow Wilderness Area, south of Hannagan. The smoke is not that visible, although my daughter was over at Hulsey yesterday and saw the smoke. I was up at Big Lake early this morning and could see only a haze of smoke south of there, not a big plume. I think winds too strong for it to plume up much. I'm back in Flag now, so I won't get the firsthand news any more.

Oh, and no campfires or charcoal grills allowed in the campgrounds since last night in Apache-Sitgreaves NF (Big Lake, Hannagan, etc.) I think stoves still allowed. Not sure about non-campgrounds.

Here's a news story on the Wallow Fire, but as of this writing it has not made it to inciweb yet. (Maybe tomorrow?)
( dead link removed )

Perimeter Map [ Wallow Fire Map 2011-06-27 :: map ]
Inciweb ( dead link removed )

[Aztec Peak 7]

Yes, it is awfully sad, especially considering that all the loss of life and limb could have been prevented by making sure their campfire was completely out. 150,000 acres and counting of some of Arizona's most breathtakingly beautiful forest have been destroyed by an irresponsible person. Yes, there was a lot of overgrowth and the area hasn't had a fire in awhile, but nature would take care of that eventually with lightning strikes or the nearby residents with carefully controlled burns. This is a crazy life threatening disaster made larger than necessary by human stupidity. This has the potential to be one of the largest, if not the largest wildfire in Arizona history. It is big enough to create weather as fire storms. A fire storm sterilizes the earth 10 ft. down so that new growth cannot occur for many years. All life has been turned upside down in our forest because of a careless act.

[nonot]

Yes, the humans that cause it are idiots, but the history of fighting fires and not allowing them to spread results in overgrowth. The overgrowth is not thinned, the forests are not managed, leading to a larger ticking time bomb. I imagine that before man came here, mother nature did very well at maintaining the forests. Our attempts to control it ultimately make it worse.

Man is both the symptom and the cause. Were the idiot not to start it with a campfire, lightning will soon enough, or a car overheating above dry grass...

I hope nobody loses their lives and I hope the loss of homes can be minimal, but ultimately fire is a natural thing, the forests are not innocent, they were made to grow, thrive, and burn, and start a new cycle again. Man gets upset because they don't want it to burn, it would mean that their expensive cabins will be lost.

Of course, for all the people I will convince, I might as well write a disposition on why people who buy in flood zones have made poor choices, as well as those that live in tropical regions shouldn't act surprised and angry that a hurricane will come and destroy things.

[trekkin_gecko]

found this in the comment section for the latest update on azcentral.com

http://firefighterblog.com/2011/06/wall ... dated-map/

[haggster]

found this in the comment section for the latest update on azcentral.com

http://firefighterblog.com/2011/06/wall ... dated-map/

Here is an interactive version of that map, http://www.geomac.gov/viewer/viewer.shtml. Over to left, click on the arrow next to "Active Fires". As you zoom in on the Willow Fire, 2 new options will appear under the Active Fires menu, "MODIS Thermal Satellite", and "HMS Thermal Satellite". Select those options for the newest activity. If you zoom too far, those 2 options will disappear.

[jochal]

found this in the comment section for the latest update on azcentral.com

http://firefighterblog.com/2011/06/wall ... dated-map/

Here is an interactive version of that map, http://www.geomac.gov/viewer/viewer.shtml. Over to left, click on the arrow next to "Active Fires". As you zoom in on the Willow Fire, 2 new options will appear under the Active Fires menu, "MODIS Thermal Satellite", and "HMS Thermal Satellite". Select those options for the newest activity. If you zoom too far, those 2 options will disappear.

I assume that the MODIS data includes the back burned areas, without any way to distinguish them, so the fire will look even worse than it actually is.

[PaleoRob]

http://www.wmicentral.com/news/fire-upd ... ge&photo=1

Shows an apparently updated paper map from the White Mountain Independent.

[Trishness]

I bet everyone here a cookie that this fire was started by stupid humans who did not put out their campfire. Was your comfort worth the 160,000 acres and thousands of people you put in danger?

I saw this first hand a few years ago when I was hiking on the Cabin Loop trail and some morons left a red hot fire going near Aspen Spring. Everything was dry tinder and they left a fire going when there was a creek with water only 100 yds away. I spent 30 mins hauling gallon ziploc bags of water to put the damn fire out. It took 8 gallons of water to put the fire out, that's how hot it was.

Some people have no business being in the backcountry. And whoever you are, I hope you can sleep at night knowing what you did.

[chumley]

From WMICentral.com (increasingly the most reliable source for up-to-date news), highlights from the meeting held this evening:

ROUND VALLEY — The public meeting held Sunday had a standing room only crowd. Joe Reinarz of the Type 1 Team and Brannon Eagar of the Sheriff’s Department brought everyone up-to-date on what happened today.
-A dry thunderstorm came up earlier Sunday and ran from south to north creating winds and dry lightening that started a lot of spot fires north and east of Alpine and up to Highway 60 along the Arizona, New Mexico border and in remote areas and ranches.
- There was no increase in activity in the interior and to the south west towards the San Carlos reservation.
- Nutrioso has been impacted by the new fires and the Wallow fire.
- Reinarz reported that at least one structure was burned around Nutrioso, but the fire is still too hot to go in and assess the area. There will be an update on that in the morning.
- Luna, New Mexico has not been impacted at this time.
- Crews were pulled from the main fire to fight the spot fires today.
- Escudilla Mountain and Wilderness area has fire through parts of it.
- Tal Wi Wi Lodge is still OK as is Greer, Big Lake and the Round Valley area.
- The fire has entered Dry Valley in the Nutrioso area.
- If the fire continues to grow to the northeast another Type 1 or Type 2 team will be brought in
- If anyone is not in good physical condition, it was recommended they leave the area.
- Residents were again cautioned to not waste water by wetting everything down too soon.
- Those people that are cutting down trees and cleaning up their yards can take the green waste to the Round Valley transfer station at no charge. It will be open on Monday.
- There was no active fire in the burnout areas created yesterday.
- Congressman Paul Gosar was present at the meeting and assured residents he spent the day touring the area and will do all he can to help.

[chumley]

Oh, and red flag warnings are in effect for Monday and Tuesday, so that does not bode well for getting a handle on things. Let's hope the back burns and dozer lines can hold. With over 2000 firefighters now in the area hopefully there will be crews able to quickly control any long distance spotting due to the wind.

[RickVincent]

Our property in Nutrioso is surrounded by fire. I'm glad we don't have any structures in there to worry about. Although, if the land burns up, its not going to be the most pleasurable place to visit for a very long time.

[azbackpackr]

My daughter went to Eagar yesterday and brought a load of family stuff back here to Flag.

It's frustrating that the Modis map doesn't have roads, and the inciweb is update like almost never, etc. So far, wmicentral.com which is the local newspaper, has the most info. But they are also limited by what they can get from the internet. I was told by someone in Eagar that the fire was 3 miles from Greer, 3 miles from Luna, NM, and has burned up the fire tower at Big Lake. Inciweb puts it at over 196,000 acres right now, but they have not kept their map updated. However, they are now including another map on their website. The one they have up now is from June 4: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/ftp/InciWeb/AZ ... 528-0.jpeg

Very large backburns have been done in the grasslands surrounding Big Lake and Crescent Lake.

Another community meeting at Round Valley High School tonight at 6 p.m. It has been almost a year since a small plane, carrying a mom, dad, and two daughters, crashed into the middle of the main high school building and exploded. That was on June 11, last year. (I was on a backpacking trip, since there were no fires...)

[chumley]

It's frustrating that the Modis map doesn't have roads

The MODIS map has several base layers, including Topo, road map, land ownership, etc.

Here's the map from 3:30am this morning using the topographic street map as the base layer.

[azbackpackr]

I will try to figure that out (it's never easy for me) after I go rent a storage unit and put a lot of family stuff away that my daughter went to get yesterday.

[Jim]

Inciweb has it at almost 193,000 acres. From that maps, it looks like Escudilla will burn.

[joebartels]

Wallow Fire - Progression Map Updated 2011-06-05

[chumley]

Jim I tend to agree, except that I've read quite a bit about back burning. If some of the MODIS "hotspots" are in fact backburns, it might be that they have been burning around the base intentionally in hopes of saving the mountain. That's my glass-half-full approach...

[Jim]

It's hard to tell from those maps. They need a line to burn against, and if there is no road, they have to install a handline or plow one. No one is putting in a handline ahead of this, and I highly doubt any plow line are going in off flanks at this point. I thought 191 was their primary line to burn off of, and the detection dots are on the other side of it. Then there is all the long range spotting this is being reported, and this from last nights update:

Storm and wind activity caused embers to spot over the U.S. Hwy. 191 resulting in a flurry of fire activity around Alpine and Nutrioso to include Escudilla Mountain .

[azbackpackr]

Monday, noon, 233,000 acres.

[chumley]

The 233,000 figure is based on last night infrared reading. With sustained winds today of 25+mph and gusts of 40+, I'm afraid to know what's happening out there. Hopefully the 2,300 firefighters are covering all the bases. It's gotta be a tough battle out there today.

[Jim]

Assuming a 12 hour shift, only about half that figure might be up and out. Then, that figure includes a lot of support personnel. When a big incident like this occurs, a city springs up with everything from cooks to accountants to medical personnel. So I've been told. So, that number seems big, but with things as they are, that's a thin spread. It's super windy here, so, you know.