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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 )

Sadly, this fire may rival the Rodeo-Chediski fire of 2002. I remember flying back from St. Louis or somewhere, and getting a prolonged view of the R-C fire as my plan went around the huge plume of smoke. That's still the most awe-inspiring sight I've ever seen. Bearing Down on the high country making it through this year without turning into a moonscape.

chumley wrote:Just had to screen capture this from AZCentral. They are such good reporters over there.

Anybody remember the enormous Crane Creek fire in 2005? I think it killed hundreds of cranes and 200,000 acres of prime crane habitat. Tragic.

Screen shot 2011-06-06 at 3.01.06 PM.jpg

I think that was actually the Cave Creek Fire?

As for the link I provided, I was watching a community meeting on live streaming, not reading that chat room stuff. I guess that is what is wrong with providing links--they might not lead others to the same site you intended them to see. Actually they said the community meeting should be available at http://www.wallow.us

But it was hard to see and hear. And the sheriff is running for re-election, so he was doing a lot of the talking.

Tonight they are going around Eagar and putting yellow tape on everyone's house, and people are supposed to put a white dish cloth next to the yellow tape once they have left the house. But guess what, they put the yellow tape where no one could even see it. So, he didn't see it, and then they came around again for some reason, after dark. "Scared me half to death," he said.

No one thinks the houses in the middle of Eagar, where mine is located, are going to be at much risk. The houses on the outskirts of town, some of them are on the edge of the P-J forest. Those would be at more risk, and people are busy cutting trees on their property, I'm told.

I want to go there but would be at risk of losing my job. I work for the school district, it's the last week of school, and they said we are not allowed to call off this week, unless we get a doctor's excuse. I would have to convince them somehow that it is an emergency.

RangerKelly wrote:

chumley wrote:Just had to screen capture this from AZCentral. They are such good reporters over there.

Anybody remember the enormous Crane Creek fire in 2005? I think it killed hundreds of cranes and 200,000 acres of prime crane habitat. Tragic.

Screen shot 2011-06-06 at 3.01.06 PM.jpg

I think that was actually the Cave Creek Fire?

@RangerKelly
Sarcasm doesn't transfer well over the internet ;) I'm pretty sure he has the same idea as you.

azbackpackr wrote: ... and people are supposed to put a white dish cloth next to the yellow tape once they have left the house.

I'd be out of luck. We don't have anything white. The closest I could come is a piece of natural canvas or a multi-colored (but partially white) hand-woven dish towel.

big_load wrote:

azbackpackr wrote: ... and people are supposed to put a white dish cloth next to the yellow tape once they have left the house.

I'd be out of luck. We don't have anything white. The closest I could come is a piece of natural canvas or a multi-colored (but partially white) hand-woven dish towel.

Well, then, I guess that fat sheriff would break down your door to make sure you are not hiding in there...!

azpride wrote:

RangerKelly wrote:

chumley wrote:Just had to screen capture this from AZCentral. They are such good reporters over there.

Anybody remember the enormous Crane Creek fire in 2005? I think it killed hundreds of cranes and 200,000 acres of prime crane habitat. Tragic.

Screen shot 2011-06-06 at 3.01.06 PM.jpg

I think that was actually the Cave Creek Fire?

@RangerKelly
Sarcasm doesn't transfer well over the internet ;) I'm pretty sure he has the same idea as you.

Yes, once i saw that they were in the same month and about the same acreage I kinda realized after the fact.

azbackpackr wrote:Well, then, I guess that fat sheriff would break down your door to make sure you are not hiding in there...!

That almost happened to me once before, when a deputy showed up one morning to arrest a former police officer who he claimed lived in my house. That was a weird little episode.

Liz-we watched the meeting thru the link you provided. Thank you for that...our feed wasn't the best either but better than waiting. Prayers for your place...

jdcollard wrote:Liz-we watched the meeting thru the link you provided. Thank you for that...our feed wasn't the best either but better than waiting. Prayers for your place...

Thank you.

No new news early in the morning. As for that chat room stuff, you can see how rumors do fly. One person saying they heard the store burned at Big Lake, but another saying it was just the fire tower. I heard via forest service friend it was just the fire tower.

And I'm not sure that the tower actually burned. The only thing that I heard officially was that the fire "affected" the Big Lake fire tower. Was never sure exactly what that meant.

Elizabeth, here's the MODIS from 4:15am this morning. You can see that there's a spot fire that probably pushed the Greer evacuation burning along the South Fork LCR halfway between Hay Lake and Mexican Hay Lake. Escudilla is showing hot spots on all sides. Gotta believe that with another windy day today that it will be completely torched.

There's also a hotspot just 6 miles from the forest boundary due south of Eagar. I expect that this is an area of great concern to the firefighters (and residents of Round Valley) considering today's weather forecast.

Thanks for the map! I'm leaving to go there in in about 5 minutes. As for the fire tower actually burning, that's local hearsay, via a forest service employee friend. I am not sure about it, though.

I will go and come back today, most likely, and bring a carload of stuff, and my fancy bike I left there over Memorial Day weekend.

"Brewer signed an emergency declaration Monday that will allow the use of $200,000 in emergency funds and authorizes the mobilization of the National Guard if it becomes necessary.
She praised the work of the federal government in fighting the flames. "The federal government has stepped up and done their job and we believe we have everything that is necessary at this point in time to keep everything under control," Brewer said. Brewer also praised the firefighters battling the fires. "We feel at this point in time that all the boots that are necessary are on the ground now," she said.

Wow, that's not how I would have put it. Perhaps she means that additional human intervention may have little effect on the outcome.

I'm not sure if you know this or not (/sarcasm/), but Gov. Brewer might have pissed off the feds a couple of times. Unfortunately, politics can be involved even in a situation like this, and she knows it, so I think she's trying to eat some crow to make sure that the state gets the federal funding requested, etc. despite her past inflammatory politicking. Just last month, Texas was denied federal emergency funds for wildfires, and speculation was quite rampant that the denial was politically motivated. (Texas being a very RED state, with a Governor who has been quite outspoken). Sucks that things work that way when lives, businesses, property, etc. are at stake. Elizabeth makes it sound like the sheriff up there is politicizing the local response too.

I bet that $200k is gone in a heartbeat.

big_load wrote:I bet that $200k is gone in a heartbeat.

That might be enough to pay the caterers. As was stated in an earlier post, these operations create small to medium sized cities wherever they setup command central. Everything is extremely costly.

big_load wrote:I bet that $200k is gone in a heartbeat.

$200k might buy lunch.

AZ Central is now reporting 311k acres burned. It now looks like this fire will become the largest fire in state history within a few days.

It's going to cross into New Mexico today or tomorrow, so stats might still keep it at #2 or #3.