Arizona fire breaks through containment line Friday and raced toward 600 homes

PHXnews ^ | 6-27-02 | AP

[AZ Righty]

SHOW LOW, Ariz. (AP) - The huge fire that has swept across eastern Arizona broke through a containment line Friday and raced toward some 600 homes in a mountain subdivision, fire officials said.

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[Fury]

What's 16 feet in an area of tall trees that are blazing? I don't know about Arizona, but when I lived in Washington State, 16 feet wouldn't have saved squat when the treetops are blazing!

I'm not sure, but don't they call a fire like this "crowning"?

When I was in the military, we had a chance to help fight a forest fire. It was a small 1,000 acre blaze, but I will never forget the fire that was crowning. It was doing so almost as fast as a man could run.

[2sheep]

>What's 16 feet in an area of tall trees that are blazing? I don't know about Arizona, but when I lived in Washington State, 16 feet wouldn't have saved squat when the treetops are blazing!

You are right.  Fires can race through the crowns.  In 1933 the first of the Tillamook Burn fires in Oregon which ultimately burned 13 billion board feet of timber, carried debris nearly 500 miles out to sea.  In sum it burned 360,882 acres:

"...The two fires, fed by the intense winds, merged to form an immense explosion of flames reaching 18 miles across. This new surge created a 40-mile wide mushroom cloud that reached approximately 40,000 feet into the sky. Debris reached ships nearly 500 miles out to sea, and a thirty mile stretch of the Oregon coast was littered with charred debris up to 2 feet deep. Northwest Oregon and southeastern Washington was shrouded in the smoke that obscurred the sun and turned day into night.

In just 20 hours, the combined Tillamook Fire consumed 240,000 acres, or half the state of Rhode Island."  Source:  Kemp, J. Larry. Epitaph For the Giants. [link now dead]

[CedarDave]

In 1933 the first of the Tillamook Burn fires in Oregon...

You mean we had global warming causing these fires as far back as 1933? It must have been FDR's environmental policies that caused this.

[discostu]

Remember embers can fly hot for half a mile or more if they catch the wind. Most fire breaks you do 20 to 30 ft wide. Which works most of them time, except when the wind has it in for you, and then your screwed. Can't make a half mile wide fire break.

[Jackie222]

very creative.....lol

You know, some of that stuff sounded quite good. I do love fried, fresh catfish.

[dtel]

So do I, so much so that I have my own little private, stocked pond.
Just fixed up a mess last weekend.
Yum yum.

[DuncanWaring]

Do greenies own homes?

No.

They are "shelter guardians". ;-P

[uglybiker]

the diesel fumes would probably prevent the spotted owl from bonding with her eggs as closely as she should.

Yo! I got sumptin' dey can bond wit right here!!

[CedarDave]

I guess political cartoonist Benson's stepped in it again:

[Freee-dame]

....As to suing the Sierra Club; that would be my fondest dream come true, however, on another thread, Clintoon's executive order giving them immunity was posted in answer to my call for that suit to happen....

Can a previous executive order be rescinded by a new one? If so, President Bush should take care of some of X42's most destructive ones.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

RE:39

Good post. Yet again, the psuedo intellectuals in government, who claim to know it all, and who want to run every aspect of our lives, are found to know nothing compared with the forces of nature. This post clearly makes the case that, in believing that "fire supression" and "controlled burns", as part of the government's "forest management" scheme, have brought utter disaster. While the natural fires serve to clear the deadwood, and clear room for trees to grow in, and control predator insect populations, etc., the conflagrations that have enveloped the "managed forests" have completely destroyed the ecosystem. Great job, fools. Wonder if we could have a program where we pay these fools, but not allow them to actually do anything. We would be better off, to be sure.

[wita]

What pray tell is an executive order doing preventing a private organization from being responsible for their actions vis-a-vis the Constitution, the Nation, it's interests, the people, etc, etc, I would venture to say, such action would be contrary to the presidential mandate for protecting the Constitution and everything under it. Oh I get it, when was a democrat ever interested in preserving that damned living document. Why it's just an old piece of paper written by a bunch of right wing kooks.

[brat]

Oh no! God speed AZ.

[2sheep]

In the cartoon you posted, right wingers are getting the blame. I've been away and must have missed the connection. How can right wingers be to blame?

[madfly]

bttt

[CedarDave]

My interpretation is that the cartoonist is calling these three entities "blame throwers" for pointing out, rightly so, that forest management, now under the control of the environmentalists, is partly (maybe mostly) to blame for these fires. Of course in his warped mind, anyone who would dare challenge an environmentalist would have to be a "Right Winger", and also must be in league with the other two. Trouble is, there is no more "Big Timber" in this part of the country -- they've all been shut down (in the southwest at least) by the enviros spotted owl lawsuits and others. And I guess "Global Warmers" are those who use fossil fuels and drive SUV's. When I lived in Arizona, the Arizona Republic used to be a very conservative newspaper, but in recent years it has become very liberal and champions the usual left-wing, PC causes.

[madfly]

Wonder if we could have a program where we pay these fools, but not allow them to actually do anything. We would be better off, to be sure.

Sad, but true.