Schultz Fire on the San Francisco Peaks

[Jim]

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1996/

INCIDENT UPDATED 40 MIN. AGO
Incident Overview

The Schultz Fire was reported at approximately 11:00 Sunday morning, and is located in the Schultz Pass area on the southeast side of the San Francisco Peaks. Crews are faced with hot, dry weather and high winds. As of 6:00 pm Forest officials believe the fire is approximately 5000 acres. Approximately 300 firefighters are on scene, additional fire resources are en route. Currently there are 8 air tankers and 5 helicopters assigned. The Southwest Type 1 Incident Management Team, Dugger Hughes Incident Commander, is en route and scheduled to assume management of the fire Monday, June 21 at 6:00 am.

Evacuations: Wupatki Trails subdivision; Timberline Estates subdivision, Sunset Crater National Monument; Second Chance Animal Shelter (animals safely evacuated to Fort Tuthill County Park); and there is no mandatory evacuation of Fernwood subdivision, although some residents have left.

Closures: State Highway 89 is closed from MP 433 (2.5 miles north of Sunset Crater National Monument) to Silver Saddle Road.

Basic Information
Incident Type Wildfire
Cause Unknown
Current Situation
Size 5,000 acres
Fuels Involved

Ponderosa pine, mixed conifer and pinyon-juniper
Fire Behavior

Very high rates of spread and high intensities observed. Spotting up to 1/2 mile.
Unit Information
USFS Shield
Coconino National Forest
U.S. Forest Service
1824 S. Thompson St.
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
Incident Contact
Emergency Operations Center
Phone: 888-679-8393
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http://hikearizona.com/photoset.php?ID=11500

[joebartels]

Sounds like it's off and on. It was unmanned two weeks ago at which point I heard it was a lack of volunteers. This is when I learned that some lookouts are volunteer and some are paid. Interesting they can come up with the money to fight a fire in a flash yet leave a vital preventative measure unsupported.

[Jim]

The fire was spotted by the paid Elden Lookout just after 11, according to some reports I read. Elden can see that area pretty well. In cases like this it sounds more like the location of the fire and weather conditions had more to do with what happened than a lack of speedy detection. Resources have been pretty involved in the Hardy and Eagle Rock, so they probably had to be released from another fire to go to the Schultz.

[Jim]

We were camped at Schultz Pass Friday & Saturday nights, hiking to the summit via Weatherford on Saturday and over on the Sunset Trail side on Sunday. When the fire first broke out it appeared as if it was just a small dust devil. (Yeah, i know, all fires start small). We were at the Schultz Pass T/H as the fire personel arrived. Shortly, the air crane was sucking water from Schultz Tank about once a minute. (I suppose that the silver lining is that Schultz Tank was so close to the fire and supplied all the water they could use, although it doesn't seem to have slowed the fire down much).
The fire started just NE (by a few feet) of Schultz Tank and jumped Schultz Tank Road within a few minutes, heading northeast. There were no storms, so my supposition is that it was started by an unattended campfire.
I hear that they arrested someone for the Little America fire and I hope that they find who is responsible for the Schultz fire, but regardless, the forest will never be the same - the damage is done. I can see the temptation for the NFS to institute campfire bans in all forests because of the almost instantaneous destruction if one gets out of control, but it's really stupid people who cause fires, not campfires.

Do you have any photos you will be posting?

[joebartels]

The fire was spotted by the paid Elden Lookout just after 11

of course, it's near a city :roll:

[hippiepunkpirate]

Mine from last night: http://www.hikearizona.com/photoset.php?ID=11504

[hikeaz]

it's really stupid people who cause fires, not campfires

amen, the sad part is effective prevention measures are being ignored too
Apparently Kendrick's lookout is volunteer and no one volunteered this year. The Eagle Rock Fire would have been an easy spot...
Do hope the Elden lookout is/was manned this year.

According to this article the E.R fire was reported by the Kendrick L.O. >> http://azdailysun.com/news/local/articl ... 03286.html
Although I heard/saw a local resident interviewed who said that he phoned the FS the evening before, about 6PM-ish, reporting the fire. This is corroborated here >> http://www.fox11az.com/news/local/96738574.html
I like (not) how the USFS turned the blame back to the residents saying that they should have dialed 911 instead of the USFS saying 'we, the forest service, should learn from this and institute an improved system for handling calls from citizens who endeavor to help us do our jobs better while our fire spotters are sleeping'. If they just read the name on the building when they went to work, maybe it may help to remind them of their place in the overall system........ forest..... service.
Typical gub'ment arrogance to attempt to blame the victim....

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To sign up to man a fire lookout tower or to have questions answered, please contact Bruce Belman (he's with "Friends of Northern Arizona Forests").
Phone: 928-527-4048. Email: svaileen@hotmail.com
If Bruce is not available, please direct your questions to Justin Loxley, the Volunteer
Coordinator for the Forest Service. Phone: 928-527-8213. Email: jdloxley@fs.fed.us

[chumley]

The thermal imaging from this morning doesn't look good. Please read the explanation on the screenshot so you understand that what you see doesn't necessarily mean all the red and yellow areas are burning or have burned. A "perimeter" map has not been set up yet. (That can be seen on the Eagle Rock Fire, also included here).

Even with that disclaimer, I don't like the way things look. Its gonna be another windy day and the tankers will likely need to be grounded again.

http://www.geomac.gov/viewer/viewer.htm

[chumley]

And from that thermal map I would say that Weatherford is definitely in jeopardy. The Inner Basin campground/trailhead area may also be in danger...

[Jim]

The fire was spotted by the paid Elden Lookout just after 11

of course, it's near a city :roll:

You guys are making it sound like inadequate fire detection because of a lack of paid lookout operators is why we had these 2 big fire in the last week. That is 100% not the reason and detection is such a small part of fire suppression. With all the campers and hikers in the Schultz Pass area Elden was hardly necessary. Aside from that, O'Leary is staffed and could have seen the Schultz, and according to the Bill Williams Lookout the Kendrick Peak Lookout is staffed by a paid operator in the week. The Eagle Rock Fire started in the week.

These big fires have all happened on very dry windy days. If someone went out into a distant isolated patch of forest and started a fire it would grow very large and be hard to contain in about 30 to 45 minutes. Hell, that person could use their cell to call the fire in when he started it and it could still be a big fire with 30 MPH winds. Schultz Pass and the Sitgreaves Mt area are relatively isolated because they are far from work stations.

The problem here is people having fires when a reason dictates they should not. The FS probably should have had a fire ban in place Friday, but in retrospect it's really easy to say that. It would have been nice if more prescribed burns had been done in the area this fire is burning, but they weren't. There is a better argument to say that they can't find money and time to do prescribed burns, but can somehow find the money and time to fight a massive blowup that occurred in part because of a lack of prescribed fire. Just last week I was telling George that Ponderosa Pine really should be burned no less than once a decade. Lots of what is burning probably hasn't seen fire in many, many decades if not over a century.

[hippiepunkpirate]

The winds blow from the southwest. I would say that the Inner Basin TH is possibly in danger, but the Weatherford should be safe. If it was going to burn, it would've burned yesterday as the fire started basically at the Weatherford TH.

[Jim]

The Inner Basin CG and TH are pretty easy to protect and might not burn at all because the fire would have to back down a slope or back in against a wind. The aspens are also still pretty moist, so they won't carry fire quickly. The Schultz has thus far been burning in dry ponderosa over grass. The Weatherford should have been burned many times over since when ever it last did, so a fire there will have only transient effects. Same for the Sunset, Little Bear, and Little Elden Trail.

[chumley]

There is a better argument to say that they can't find money and time to do prescribed burns, but can somehow find the money and time to fight a massive blowup that occurred in part because of a lack of prescribed fire.

I think this is much less of a money/time issue than it is a PR/NIMBY issue. People don't like smoke especially when it settles into their backyard on an otherwise pleasant evening. The regulations in place to get approval and protect the "public" from a few days of inconvenient smoke is absolutely stupid. The people who complain don't realize that a few days of inconvenience is better than a lifetime of moonscape from their back porch.

[chumley]

The Inner Basin CG and TH are pretty easy to protect and might not burn at all because the fire would have to back down a slope or back in against a wind. The aspens are also still pretty moist, so they won't carry fire quickly. The Schultz has thus far been burning in dry ponderosa over grass. The Weatherford should have been burned many times over since when ever it last did, so a fire there will have only transient effects. Same for the Sunset, Little Bear, and Little Elden Trail.

I hope you're right. I'm not nearly as familiar with the terrain there as some others, but wind acts much the way water does in a stream or river. It goes faster in tight spots in terrain, and there's no telling that an "eddy" doesn't whip the wind around that corner. The open space and aspens certainly help, but weatherwise the lower basin area might cause a totally unpredictable or indefensible wind and fire environment.

[Jim]

There is a better argument to say that they can't find money and time to do prescribed burns, but can somehow find the money and time to fight a massive blowup that occurred in part because of a lack of prescribed fire.

I think this is much less of a money/time issue than it is a PR/NIMBY issue. People don't like smoke especially when it settles into their backyard on an otherwise pleasant evening. The regulations in place to get approval and protect the "public" from a few days of inconvenient smoke is absolutely stupid. The people who complain don't realize that a few days of inconvenience is better than a lifetime of moonscape from their back porch.

The good news is that no matter how bad this fire is, we won't have moonscape. Probably very little of the burned area will look like Kendrick. So much of that area was relatively open and grassy, and the grass will be green and lush in a month after the rain comes. The winds pushed fire up into the trees and there will be lots of dead ones, but they fall over and start to rot in a few years. Less if cut down.The worst will be the area along the Water Line Trail. In my 2008 description of that hike I mention the forest conditions and the changes since the cessation of fire. Unfortunately, that area is forever changed to a new forest dynamic than what existed in 1850. The large ponderosa pines that occupied that dry slope were being out competed by the aspen and white fir that were all over the place, and now with the fire it seems likely that the slope will have burned hot enough to kill most everything above the ground. However, the aspen will flourish and in 10 years most of the east face will be aspen. We all know how people love aspen.
http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=1373

One thing of interest on this trail is the vegetation. The lower part is almost pure ponderosa pine. The upper part is some nice aspen and some spruce-fir. The middle part was at one time a decent mixed conifer stand, but it has since degenerated into a thicket of young white fir in many areas. Its interesting to see the large snags of ponderosa pine, douglas fir, and even a few white firs that have died as the young white fir juveniles have out competed them. Unfortunately, with the dry conditions in recent times the young trees don't always look so healthy and I could see this area burning up in a fire at some point, and hopefully converting to an aspen stand. This is something to think about when riding slowly up the road.

Dam! In 2008 I called it! BooYa!

[joebartels]

We live in a world of resources galore that simply are not used to potential. They can spot a border crosser something like fifty miles away via an infrared camera yet put an ill-equipped man on a mountain to monitor a forest that took hundreds of years to develop. I don't care what the media or forest service is reporting. I was on that mountain (previous week) and there was not a paid lookout nor a volunteer. The Eagle Fire was started the day before and not acted upon until the next day. Wind or no wind there were multiple break downs in the flimsy system. Even if there is someone there, how effective are they? What's their interest? What's their devotion?

Does a fire ban detour people with common sense or people causing fires? If LA put out a ban on robberies, would crime go down?

Unfortunately the only thing to survive will be the idiot that started it. Perhaps it's all for the better, who knows?

[Jim]

We live in a world of resources galore that simply are not used to potential. They can spot a border crosser something like fifty miles away via an infrared camera yet put an ill-equipped man on a mountain to monitor a forest that took hundreds of years to develop. I don't care what the media or forest service is reporting. I was on that mountain (previous week) and there was not a paid lookout nor a volunteer. The Eagle Fire was started the day before and not acted upon until the next day. Wind or no wind there were multiple break downs in the flimsy system. Even if there is someone there, how effective are they? What's their interest? What's their devotion?

Does a fire ban detour people with common sense or people causing fires? If LA put out a ban on robberies, would crime go down?

Unfortunately the only thing to survive will be the idiot that started it. Perhaps it's all for the better, who knows?

Lookouts are well equipped for their job. They spot, locate and report fire. The Fire Armies are very well equipped for what they do. Your TL for Kendrick is for the 12th, a Saturday. Yes, there is a problem with not staffing on weekends, but that wasn't an issue in either case. The guy who called the FS instead of dialing 911 wasn't very bright. Why didn't he call 911? More importantly, did the FS have a message instructing people to call 911 to report fires? The Eagle fire may have been smoldering for days due to a Friday the 11th lightning strike. Did you or anyone else from your party spot that? The lookout operates are pretty devoted and interested. it isn't a hard job and most like or love doing it. They are also very effective in spotting. In 2007, the O'Leary operator spotted a car fire on the Hopi Res some 75 miles east of him.

A fire ban is effective if patrols are made and enforcement is carried out. The FS has personnel that do that specifically during bans. They go to campgrounds, and patrol areas that people frequent, places like Schultz Pass which has a high level of camping and an area people like to "back country" camp. Bans are also posted at entrance portals at places like Schultz Pass Road. They also put big Electric Highway signs up on roads to tell people about the bans. There is nothing philosophical about this. Its simply cause and effect. I don't care about LA or it's crime, because it is just that. If a ban is in effect, and the ban is advertised as they are, and patrols are made to enforce this ban, and then someone has a fire that becomes a Schultz Fire, well those people are no longer law abiding suburban idiots who went camping and got a little careless. They are now arsonists and can be prosecuted as such and face large fines, the cost of the suppression and frequently jail time. Most people aren't so stupid as to have a fire in a ban. Obviously, Fossil Creek shows that some are, but they got their 500 dollar fine. The difference between crime in LA and a wildfire resulting from a campfire during a ban is that the crime in LA was criminal from the start and the perpetrator never cared one way or the other. The arsonist camper would be as well, but the difference is that most campers are not willing to cross the line from recreationalist to criminal just to have a fire.

It should be noted that no ban was in place and there does not yet appear to be one.

[Jim]

http://www.examiner.com/a-2691555~Schul ... icted.html

Nearly 9,000 acres.

[joebartels]

Seems the FS should be out patrolling regardless of a fire ban or not. If they had infrared cameras on those lookouts they could relay the info on the spot johnny. Which in turn would enable them to manage their time wisely instead of roaming aimlessly.

While a fire ban may seem to be beneficial, it may not too. It would be virtually impossible to prove scientifically one way or the other. Like location secrets in the climbing and caving communities there's no proof that limiting the use from good abiding citizens improves the situation. It may do the opposite. If ma and pa Goodwill aren't out camping, then Dr Idiot's actions will likely go unnoticed.

The Eagle fire may have been smoldering for days due to a Friday the 11th lightning strike. Did you or anyone else from your party spot that?

No fire spotted, we weren't looking either. Added proof it should have been manned.

[Jim]

I can't say if they patrol on regular weekends or not, but there isn't a lot they could do on a weekend such as this last one other than what they always do, tell people to be careful and make sure the fire is put before they leave it. Infrared cameras sounds like a grasp at unnecessary technology because people today love expensive gadgets when the old way still works well. Expensiveness Infrared cameras only detect heat, if they can see it. Smoke is easier to see above the trees, and a human would still have to determine the cause of the heat and it's location.

There may be data or a study with statistics that show a fire ban is effective in preventing new human caused fires during periods of high fire danger.

The Eagle fire may have been smoldering for days due to a Friday the 11th lightning strike. Did you or anyone else from your party spot that?

No fire spotted, we weren't looking either. Added proof it should have been manned.

No, not really. The fire didn't erupt until Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday passed by and those were manned days.

These fire are not a lookout problem, they are a weather and fuels problem.

[joebartels]

Perhaps on all accounts
I just disagree