Moderator: HAZ - Moderators
I wonder how much of the $85 Million in restitution was ever paid by the perpetrators ?“The one thing that’s interesting … when you look at the Rodeo-Chediski Fire and the Wallow Fire — the Wallow Fire ended up a little more than half a million acres and took it something like six weeks,” Leech said. “The Rodeo-Chediski Fire wound up a little under half a million acres — 470,000 — and it did that in six days.
I'm assuming they mean the largest fire in Arizona history, but still! Right now there are four active wildfires in Arizona that exceed the Dude Fire's acreage according to InciWeb.We should have understood everything when in 1992 the Dude Fire burned 24,000 acres, killed six firefighters and taught horrified fire commanders that a wildfire can create it’s own weather. The fire in the hottest, driest month of the year on the face of the Mogollon Rim built a pillar of flame and smoke 30,000 feet high. When the top of that column froze in the high, cold air, the pillar collapsed – blowtorching flames 1,000 feet in every direction. The flames rushed down the canyon faster than an Olympic sprinter could run and incinerated a crew of firefighters clinging desperately to their frail fire shelters against the hurricane winds.
Back then, the Dude Fire’s 24,000 acres ranked as the largest fire in recorded history. Imagine that: 24,000 – the worst fire ever. Now, 20 years later – it’s not in the top 10, save for the loss of life.
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