Posted on 06/23/2002 10:51:08 PM PDT by ReaganIsRight
Arizona Town Besieged by Raging Wildfire
Sun Jun 23,10:07 PM ET
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Two raging wildfires converged on Sunday into the biggest fire in Arizona's 90-year history, licking at the edges of a mountain town as firefighters battled to save hundreds of homes.
The fire, which has charred more than 322,000 acres, was steadily gaining on the town of Show Low, about 150 miles northeast of Phoenix, said Dorman McGann, spokesman for the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest.
By late Sunday afternoon, the fire reached the edge of Show Low in Arizona's eastern high country and claimed its first casualty -- a firefighter's home.
The town's 8,000 residents were evacuated late on Saturday, moments after a protective perimeter fireline gave way to the advancing wall of flames.
Crews on Sunday waged a house-by-house rear-guard action and aerial assault with fire retardant in a frantic effort to save the deserted homes, while hoping roads and concrete buildings would weaken the inferno's relentless progress.
"You might think with a town lying there (in the fire's path) it might burn it completely over," said Kartha Icenhaur, spokeswoman for Apache Sitgreaves National Forest. "But it's like a mosaic. It may burn over and not burn the whole thing."
The northbound edge of the fire eventually will reach grassland beyond the town, terrain that gives firefighters an opportunity to halt its advance, Icenhaur said.
Other parts of the blaze, however, are headed for the nation's largest Ponderosa pine forests -- dense and highly combustible fuel that has whipped the flames to heights of 400 feet, McGann said.
The fires have driven thousands of people from their homes and drawn angry criticism of the federal government's forest management policy and environmentalists.
Arizona Gov. Jane Hull blamed poor forest management for the ferocity of the twin blazes, which began early last week and have forced the evacuation of up to 25,000 people from a number of small towns and destroyed about 180 homes.
"I know this country and I have never seen anything like this fire," Hull said. "Mother Nature is saying to Arizona, to the West, that we have to clean up these forests. I hope the message gets across that we need to clean these forests."
McGann said the pine forests became choked with underbrush because environmentalists had blocked efforts to clear it.
"Every time you try to do a sale for logging of any kind you have the environmentalists slap a lawsuit on them," McGann said. "We probably spend as much money on lawsuits as we do fighting fires."
The main fire started late Tuesday as a 300 acre blaze, churning through tinder-dry Ponderosa pine, pinion juniper ( news - web sites) and Manzanita in rough and steep terrain on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.
Weather conditions continued hot with low humidity on Sunday but the winds that drove the fires to mammoth proportions during the week had somewhat abated, McGann said.
LOOKING BETTER IN COLORADO
Things were looking better in Colorado, where the Hayman fire, 55 miles southwest of Denver remained at 67 percent containment and land consumed at 137,000 acres.
An emergency rehabilitation team was already planning how to stop erosion in the burn zone, said Stephanie Schmidt, an incident information officer.
"We want to get people thinking about how to bring land back to a healthy state," Schmidt said.
Fire officials were concerned, however, about hot, dry and windy weather forecast for later in the week.
"It's staying in place, although there are hot spots here and there," said fire information officer Randy Moench.
The Hayman fire, allegedly started deliberately by U.S. Forest Service employee Terry Lynn Barton, has destroyed 115 homes and 444 other buildings. She has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial on Aug. 26.
A fire near Durango, in southwest Colorado, remained stubborn, consuming 62,466 acres.
The blaze, which has so far destroyed 45 homes, was still only 25 percent contained, Moench said. Although residents from 740 homes were allowed to return home, at one point nearly 1,800 homes had been evacuated.
A third fire of roughly 8,000 acres, known as the Million fire, was 50 percent contained and believed to be under control on Sunday afternoon, Schmidt said.
Late Sunday, fire officials were carefully watching a fast-growing, though still small blaze in Northwest Colorado. A lightning strike started the Pinyon Ridge fire, which has doubled in size overnight to 500 acres.
Land burned in this year's Western fire season stands at nearly 2.3 million acres, more than double the 10-year average of 920,000 acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Thank you.
And RIR, you did an excellent job.
McGann said the pine forests became choked with underbrush because environmentalists had blocked efforts to clear it.
"Every time you try to do a sale for logging of any kind you have the environmentalists slap a lawsuit on them," McGann said. "We probably spend as much money on lawsuits as we do fighting fires."
Now, it might be time for the feds, and the victims who have suffered a loss, to turn the tables and slap a lawsuit on the environazis. Or two. Or three.
Yes! ABSOLUTELY. This needs to happen. ASAP. Uneducated and irrational 'environmentalists', and the foundations that fund them, must be held legally and financially accountable for their actions.
I'm from back east and our forests are different, but some forestry management is required everywhere.
The number one producer of Hardwoods (not S-P-F) is the state government of Pennsylvania. If you don't maintain a wooded tract here, it will quickly become a poorly managed fire hazard.
The state makes a pretty penny from selling the hardwoods, and still must maintain fire roads and replant the harvested trees.
Most of the northern states were logged (clear cut), I think back before Teddy Roosevelt became President. In PA, they left the little cherry trees because they weren't worth taking. The famous Pennsylvania House furniture is mostly made of the leftover cherry trees that are now worth almost as much as the black walnuts.
Some b*stards actually stole a black walnut tree from a park in Philadelphia (low life city) because it was worth over 2K, and this was years ago.
The forest service has cost us a ton of money in lost timber and jobs (out west) and now is losing everything they sought to preserve with their horrible management. I have rope, but can we find a tree high enough after all the fires?
The famous Wye Oak in MD, over 300 years old, finally fell this spring. Trees don't normally live that long back here in the east, and we really need even more forest management than out west.
We are sub-tropical on the east coast (more than 40 inches of rain per year) and when the weather is great you can almost see the crops grow.
I even saw a whitetail doe with triplets last year! They are feeding on soy beans and have a very easy life, the coyotes aren't even making a dent.
Best to all.
Charred acreage at nearly 300,000 acres; fire to hit Show Low soon
In Alaska, we have burns every spring, usually they just let them go until it rains; unless near populated centers. More and more that's the case now-a-days.
I'd like to see some economic activity in our forests too, but burns will still be a fact of life. Sure makes the moose numbers go off the charts too.
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