Charred acreage at nearly 300,000 acres; fire to hit Show Low soon

The Arizona Republic ^ | 6/23/02 | Judd Slivka, Pat Flannery, Kristin Go

[uglybiker]

SHOW LOW - Two huge wildfires raging through northeastern Arizona have exploded to a total of nearly 300,000 acres, fire officials said Sunday morning, with the larger blaze expected to hit Show Low by Sunday afternoon or Monday morning.

Noting the shifting winds and the intensity of the inferno, operations section chief Buck Wickham cautioned, "That's a projection, and this fire has done nothing that we've projected yet."

[dittomom]

President Bush is coming to visit Arizona tomorrow on his way to the G8 Summit in Canada.

Air Force One will land in Phoenix early in the morning and then the President will take a small plane up to the fire area. He will visit an Elementary school in Eager.

[dittomom]

Jim Paxon of the Forest Service is speaking again...

First day in 5 that we haven't lost any structures...

Fire has been split into branches or quadrants. Eventually there will be 5000 people working on the fire.

Fire was very active today. It is less than half a mile from Show Low. Fire flared up and died down several times.

HOP CANYON - fire has come out of Hop Canyon to the south. They will try to finish the burn out line tonight. There were 100 foot flames there today.

NO CONTAINMENT - lines are not secure.

Stresses how areas where prescribed burns had been done in the past did not burn nearly as badly - 5 foot flames instead of 100 foot flames. Says we need to manage our forests more like mother nature does...

Type 1 Hot shot crews are working in Hop Canyon tonight. One of these crews is from Flagstaff.

[homeschool mama]

Thanks for the ping.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Stresses how areas where prescribed burns had been done in the past did not burn nearly as badly - 5 foot flames instead of 100 foot flames. Says we need to manage our forests more like mother nature does...

REPEATING SOME SIMPLE LOGIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the reply. PRAYERS EVERYONE!!!!!

[dittomom]

Info on damage assessment...

NEW PHONE NUMBER to find out if your house was damaged. Number will NOT have info about homes in Heber and Overgaard.

928-524-4262 ---- Number will be staffed in the morning.

162 Homes have been lost so far. 98 homes destroyed in Timberland Acres alone. HOWEVER, over 2000 homes have been saved.

President Bush will arrive in Springerville for a briefing tomorrow. He will also meet with evacuees.

[LarryLied]

Sierra Club and other environmentalists have been all over TV tonight shifting blame away from their policies. What is the reaction of the locals? Think there will be a backlash against these groups?

[kcvl]

Sierra Club, Arizona

[dittomom]

No one is buying their load of #$%^!!! I've been listening to talk radio (as usual) and folks are angry with both the Sierra Clubbers and the Forest Service.

Here's an article from today's Arizona Republic...

Forestry policy is hampered by politics

[kcvl]

Forest Service spends 40 percent of its annual budget defending itself against environmental groups

[dittomom]

Well, well, well. As of this morning they didn't have one word on their site about the fires. They got hammered on talk radio today about it and now, Presto! they've responded. It's about time Governor Hull stood up to them.

[dittomom]

I know, it's absolutely obscene. Alot of people believe that the Forest Service has been infiltrated by far too many enviro-nazis.

[kcvl]

political wrangling prevented the burns because residents north of Hop Canyon did not want smoke and ashes coming into their area, said Chaden Palmer, a Forest Service spokesman

[kcvl]

*Charles Babbitt, an attorney and member of the Maricopa County Audubon Society*

Is this guy related to Bruce Babbitt of the Clinton reign of terror?

[Angelique]

Jim Paxon just got off a briefing. That guy is really tired. He did not have a lot to say other than they are still hopeful.

I think the Bush's arroval has them all a little nervous.

[kcvl]

The United States Forest Service, nominally an agency of the Department of Agriculture, nevertheless was directed by Babbitt’s former head of the BLM, Michael Dombeck. Despite the dire warnings of fire in neglected forests, Dombeck had argued that economic losses in the timber industry would be offset by $100 billion in mysteriously-collected recreation revenues by 2001. At the same time, he announced plans to halt all road construction and eliminate existing roads on 40 to 60 million acres of the national forests.

Dombeck’s Deputy Chief for Forest Management, Jim Furnish, told RANGE in 1999 that, “If the choice is to allow more harvest or to allow it to burn, then it’s burn.” Following the summer fires, Babbitt and Dombeck said it would require more than $1.7 billion to begin restoration of the devastated areas, including $117 million to clear dead trees and brush. Environmental groups publicly objected to the funding for clearing debris.

Once Bruce Babbitt had established his “Babe Ruth” position on behalf of environmentalists in the Department of Interior, he soon brought in others dedicated to the movement, including George Frampton, former president of the Wilderness Society, who rose to become President Clinton’s chief environmental advisor.

Frampton and others given positions in federal authority by Babbitt and Vice President Gore, were well aware of the most radical proposal put forward by environmentalists in these last 10 years. Attributed to “Earth First!” extremist David Foreman, but actually the work of a consortium of organizations including the never-touched Nature Conservancy, the “Wildlands Project” proposes to control and restrict human activity on no less than 50 percent of the United States land mass, virtually all of it west of the Rockies. It is an almost unbelievable scheme to favor wildlife over human habitation and predatory domination over any domestic use.

[dittomom]

Yeah, I'm about to turn in too. Not only does the Bush visit make them all nervous, it also keeps them from getting their jobs done. However, Bush is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Since this is such a huge disaster it is probably good for him to come here and call more attention to it.

[kcvl]

In its budget submission for 1999-2000 some $20 million was diverted from federal funds to combat wildfires into the president’s “Lands Legacy” fund for new federal acquisitions.

[Brad’s Gramma]

If you can find things to actually DOCUMENT this stuff, will you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go to http://www.hughhewitt.com and send it to him? He WILL jump on this, on the air. And the guy's got a huge audience. Everyone stay safe out there and thanks for all the time and effort.

[kcvl]

While claiming to be saving America from corporate influence, unaccountable non-profit environmentalist groups maintain more than 3,400 full-time employees in Washington, D.C. Funding for their advocacy efforts is estimated at $400 million a year, including more than $35 million a year from Pew Charitable Trusts alone.

[kcvl]

http://www.rangemagazine.com

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