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Immediately south of Little America and I-40 and the Rio De Flag the Hardy Fire is currently burning in Ponderosa Pine. The fire started around 1pm today (per my first spotting of smoke while in East Flag near the Sizzler at a friends house) south of the Rio De Flag water treatment plant and east of the community college, and was driven by high winds in a northeasterly direction towards Little America, Butler Ave, the Country Club area, and the Riverdale trailer neighborhood. Newspaper reports state the fire is greater than 200 acres (likely over 500 by now) and a "person of interest" is being held for questioning. I came across a camp while out there and I am 100% sure the fire started from a cooking fire that got away from one of the transients (bums) that use that area as their living room. The shelter in town closed a month or so ago. Homeless problem? No, not in America.

I just got back from the fire perimeter and observed long distance spotting, brief crown fires (torching) and heavy smoke indicative of a stand replacement fire. Bomber, lead planes and spotters continue to fly the fire lines and directly above my house. I 40 is at a crawl in the east bound direction.

I got some pics and video I will post. One is a video of a surfactant drop by a bomber.

Pics:
http://hikearizona.com/photoset.php?ID=11491

Surfactant drop south of Little America taken from the APS ROW south of the Rio De Flag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQVdiTx3I1A

HeliTak Chopper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtOCi4_55Yg

Nice Videos

Personally, I was hoping for some mass destruction in the Country Club area, you know, level out the income disparity a little bit around here.

It made the national news. They said a man was detained for questioning.

Presumably someone who was aiming to "level out the income disparity" around there?

hippiepunkpirate wrote:Personally, I was hoping for some mass destruction in the Country Club area, you know, level out the income disparity a little bit around here.

They're insured. It would be good for local construction, though.

I am very interested in learning more about the person of interest. Regardless of all the homeless issues, the shelter closing, the fire weather, and all of that, this fire wold have been a lot different if this forest had been thinned and burned years ago, like it should have been. The FS has a burn plan map on their web page. The area this burned through is private and State Trust Land, so the Feds CAN'T be blamed for this one. Blame the State for NOT managing it's lands, and blame a private land owner for the same. I guess blame ultimately falls on the person who started it, since there was no lightning, but had this been like the Eagle Rock Fire it very well may have been from lightning.

Anyone know what's going on with the new fire north of Flag as of Sunday? Not familiar enough with the neighborhood names to recognize if it's close to "town" or out in the boonies. I'm supposed to be heading up there next weekend.

viewtopic.php?f=45&t=5263&p=56318#p56318


The fire is burning on the San Francisco Peaks. Areas currently affected are east and north east of town. Flagstaff is largely unaffected by the fire.

AS of 745 this morning..........

282 Acres and 25% contained

Ft Apache IHC
Gila IHC

still assigned today.

As of 2200 on June 24th

Fire is 282 ac @ 90% contained; fire is smoldering, plan is to mop up & patrol

4 eng assigned (T1, T2, 2 T3)