HikeArizona.COM

Crown King is evacuating now. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... dewey.html

Good job careless campers.

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=> -> Gladiator Perimeter Map

We could see the billowing smoke coming from the Gladiator Fire on our way back from Prescott today. It looks huge. Strange we didn't notice it on the drive there this morning. Could it have grown that much today? John9L took some pictures from the car-- maybe he'll post them.

@Toughboots Yes, it grew that fast. I live south of Carefree Hwy and I could see a small plume this morning, I assume the Westerlies kicked in this afternoon and it took off. The storms over the Bradshaw's produced little rain on Thursday, thus I feel it was campfire or some other human activity.

from what I've read, the Gladiator fire started on private land so I imagine that rules out campers. Maybe not other human carelessness, but it looks like the campers are blameless this time ;)

Drove south on I17 tonight, the Gladiator fire looks like it is pretty serious. Black Canyon city has a huge smoke cloud overhead. News crews are setup at Sunset Point.

Tough_Boots wrote:John9L took some pictures from the car-- maybe he'll post them.

Here is one of the pics of the Gladiator Fire. I took this one on the 69 on our way home from Prescott around 4pm. I took more but most of them came out blurry.

This fire started as a structure fire and spread to the forest according to YCSO. A type One Incident Command has been requested with a lot of resources as well.

Saw on the news last night that the one near Crown King was a house fire that spread ...

That's good news Kingsnake. I'm glad I was wrong about the careless campers.

@burntlizard
I guess neither one of us has to buy lunch this time....

Maybe it was just my imagination, but I thought for sure I saw a very distant smoke plume over the White Tanks from SW Buckeye. I'm thinking it belonged to this fire.

I saw a smoke plume toward the NW driving west on the 101 in N Phx. It seemed too close to be Gladiator but I'm not familiar with the location; especially relative to how far we can see from the Valley.

Gladiator Fire - Progressive Perimeter Map Updated

Man, the wind has really steered it to the north. I had a clear view of the smoke plume today vs the other day and it didn't look good.

Gladiator Fire - Progressive Perimeter Map updated here.. http://hikearizona.com/map.php?QX=1830 and from Home Page
(data as of 5/17/12 at 2350)

I have a grandson who had been a part-time fireman/EMT with the Miami/Claypool FD. He was moved to full-time just last month and took additional training on wildfires. Yesterday he was loaned to the fire crew on this, his first actual wildfire - the Gladiator. He is on the fire line today. He is a big strong lad (well maybe, at 25, I should not call him a lad), but this is rough and remote terrain. If he gets any messages out during his breaks and they are pertinent here, I'll post what he says of his experiences. He just got married on 4/27, so his new bride is more than a little concerned. I hope they get this out quickly, but with the winds, it does not look good.

Is anyone familiar with the locations (I would like to have the GPS coordinates for each) of the small residential communities of "Pine Flat & Turkey Creek"?
I now understand they are both under a twenty-four hour evacuation notice and I would like to add a waypoint reference on to our Gladiator Fire map for these two communities.

the gladiator fire is getting the media coverage
nothing on channel five regarding the sunflower fire
presumably because of evacuations and threat to communities
this wind must have made for a rough day
turkey creek and pine flats currently being evacuated
http://inciweb.org/incident/2864/

@evanshiker
I wish the best of luck to your grandson. I wouldn't want to be in the trenches for something like this.