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Pulled out of my driveway and noticed the orange glow in the pre-dawn hour coming from Pusch Ridge. Then drove down the block and noticed the same glow coming from the Tortolita's.

The fire in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness is below Bighorn Peak and doesn't appear to be hitting Pusch Peak or the Cleaver yet. Luckily it's not windy this morning or we could have a huge mess on our hands.

Over in the Tortolita's as best as I can figure it looks like the fire is at the very end of the Wild Burro trail near where it intersects with the Ridgeline trail.

Last news report I saw was that the Pusch Ridge fire is being monitored and can't be accessed due to the terrain. Our local fire crews are all over in the Tortolita's working on it.

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2020-06-29 Changed Subject from Two Fires In NW Tucson to Bighorn Fire since the other was contained long ago and did not affect hiking much if any.

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6741/

@SpiderLegs
I'm not a member of any of those, and won't join. The only one I ever was a member of, Arizona Hiking, was so shudderingly gawd-awful I took myself off of it.

azbackpackr wrote: ↑Jun 17 2020 12:08 pm @SpiderLegs
I'm not a member of any of those, and won't join. The only one I ever was a member of, Arizona Hiking, was so shudderingly gawd-awful I took myself off of it.

I hear you, I'm in a couple of trail running groups along with Tucson oriented hiking and climbing groups, pretty mellow. The group you're speaking of was indeed off putting and I stopped paying attention to them.

@Jim_H
Latest MODIS I saw (Caltopo, not sure if there's a more up-to-date source) shows a lot of activity in upper CDO all the way up to the ridge as far as Lemmon Lookout. Also still some activity in upper Ventana, Window Peak, and upper Esperero.

@SpiderLegs
If I winter in Tucson (new RV, more choices) I may look at those, and will rejoin SAHC. I lived there from 1986-99.

The smoke plume exploded in the view from my house in the last hour.

We've been getting updates from Mrs. big_load's Tucson buddy. Unfortunately, she has a direct view from her back yard.

Webcams from Summerhaven. The camera at the top of Oracle Ridge by the Control Road turnoff shows the fire coming over Red Ridge and up Oracle Ridge. I don't know if there will be another picture from that camera...

https://www.windy.com/-Webcams/United-S ... 110.778,15

@jrousoshammond
That's at the Fire House. The weather-cam across the highway, near the general store is now offline, while the station on Radio Ridge is still operating. Not too encouraging an outlook.

@Mountain_Rat
MODIS is now showing activity all along the summit, ski run road, down red ridge almost to Catalina Camp, and a ways down Control Road. Maybe even in Summerhaven itself. Not good.

@ShatteredArm
If you look at the times on all of the cams up there, they recorded their last images 2 to 3 hours ago, somewhere between 17:00 & 17:30. I was looking at VIRS a while ago and it looked like the whole CDO was engulfed. Don't know what time, just 'today'.

@Mountain_Rat
Trico Power shut off the electricity up there at 1730.

The Bighorn Fire Facebook page is doing a live Mt Lemmon community meeting right now.

Just texted my sister in Tucson about it, she said the "rumor is 45 structures."

The bighorn fire has one heckuva plume of smoke. I took a couple of pics this afternoon while getting gas at the Craycroft exit on I-10.

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The latest video I saw on the Bighorn Facebook page was that the FS essentially let Sanmaniego Ridge burn without any efforts to stop it. Efforts are focused on Summerhaven and bulldozing old firebreaks from the Aspen fire close to Oracle to set up a defensive barrier. Went out to watch the fire for a few minutes tonight and the two hot spots are close to Summerhaven and the ridgeline heading to the town of Oracle.

The original Aspen fire burned supposedly 300 structures, the rebuild was supposed to stress fire resistant structure. Two business buildings survived the first fire, I think a realty office and the pie place.
If they end up evacuating Saddlebrooke some of those old people that live there may need help, some of them are not very mobile and some don't have family near by.

Might going north for a few hours to help an old client load some livestock. Oracle is in Set mode now.

Mission accomplished. Horses loaded, got to drive a huge duelly with a 30 foot horse trailer. Helped another neighbor with a couple of exotics; emu's and llama's can be aholes, I learned.

AZGF cam captured black bears near Catalina State Park they assumed came down from the mountain; also some bighorn's with lambs were tracked between Pima Canyon and Swan. Gotta be awful stressful on these animals in this heat, and encroaching humans. Wonder how the slurry dumps might affect them if they get coated.

Saw tons of smoke coming from the western side of Ventana Canyon this afternoon.

@jrousoshammond
I heard about this. I heard they said it was backburning, but a friend of mine, watching from town, said it sure looked like it got away from them. That's just rumor, of course, but the photos I saw, taken from midtown, were pretty spectacular last night. On the current inciweb map, it shows there are still plenty of hiking trails not hit by the fire, should anyone want to hike in the Catalinas later in the year (I do.)