2011 Wildfire Season

[Bob Gray]

Don't know how close folks elsewhere in the country are watching the story out here in Arizona, but the Wallow Fire grew substantially overnight, to 486 square miles, or roughly 311,000 acres. Thankfully nobody has been killed so far, and most homes and businesses in the area have been saved. But, they have zero containment, and it's moving toward a number of towns in the area. Not sure when it'll stop with no rain in the forecast and continued high winds.

The Arizona Republic has a really interesting map that shows from day to day how the fire has spread.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/wallow-fire-timeline.html

And it's not the only wildfire in Arizona, with a number of others, including the Horseshow Two fire that's now over 100,000 acres.

 

[dave29]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

Here in Colorado Springs we have been getting a lot of haze from that fire and the smoke smell has been so strong that I have felt like I am camping at my own house. Yesterday the haze was so large that it covered all of Pikes Peak and you couldn't see if for awhile. It has actually been like this for the past few days. Today has been much better though. Thoughts and prayers to all of you that are affected in Arizona.

 

[huskyfan]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

we camped a few days in Cortez CO and had the same smoky hazy skies. my heart goes out to these folks!

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

My wife and I were talking about camping for a week over the 4th of July in the Big Lake area, south of Greer, but I don't there's going to be much left there. Eventually if this thing goes far enough north, it'll run out of timber, as it hits the high plateau country, but if it gets there, it'll have gone through a number of towns and gone from #2 to #1 in all time Arizona fires. It's got about 140,000 acres to pass up the Rodeo-Chedski fire.

 

[huskyfan]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

watching Phoenix news - they expected it will become the biggest fire. embers are beginning to rain down on Eager and they still are not completely evacuated.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

They are talking about potential rolling blackouts in El Paso as the wildfire threatens a major electric transmission line that feeds power from the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona to El Paso. Still no containment, and with reports yesterday of embers falling three miles ahead of the fire, it's going to be hard to build a substantive fire break unless the wind dies down or something.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

Reports are this morning that firefighters had to abandon the town of Greer for awhile due to the fire jumping a main line of defense in the area (there's only one road in and out of Greer), but it's unclear how much, if any, of the town has burned. Full evacuations of Eagar and Springervillle, as the first is supposedly within a mile of those towns.

 

[dave29]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

How bad are the winds down there?

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

How bad are the winds down there?

Pretty bad, which is a major reason the fire has grown so much and it's still zero percent contained almost two weeks in. They've talked about wind gusts up to 50 mph at times, with general windy conditions, blowing embers up to three miles ahead of the main fire. I think a good chunk of the strategy is to just try to hang on and avoid any major losses of structures, until eventually the wind dies down. But it can be pretty windy at times in that part of Arizona, so it's hard to know when wind conditions will improve. Throw in drought conditions and lots of pines weakened by the ravages of the bark beetle in recent years, and it's a real tinderbox out there.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

The fire has now grown to 408,000 acres (about 640 square miles), but with lower winds recently, they've got 5 percent containment. Sounds like some homes were lost in Greer, but much of the town was saved, at least for now. They are projecting very windy conditions coming in again on Saturday, so they're trying to get as much done as possible before then to try to hold the line when the winds pick up.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

The Wallow Fire is now the largest in Arizona history, at 469,000 acres or roughly 732 square miles. For comparison purposes, if this fire was in Rhode Island, over 60 percent of the state would have burned. But, it sounds like they've started getting it under at least a little control, with about 10 percent containment.

 

[streaker]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

The Wallow Fire is now the largest in Arizona history, at 469,000 acres or roughly 732 square miles. For comparison purposes, if this fire was in Rhode Island, over 60 percent of the state would have burned. But, it sounds like they've started getting it under at least a little control, with about 10 percent containment.

I'm really sad about this Bob. Spent many a summer up there with family. Was last up there in Greer in spring, 2009 and toured around John Wayne's former ranch up there. Hopefully it will be spared, as will McNary, Pinetop, Show Low.

 

[SteveP]

Re: 2011 Wildfire Season

My wife's family live in Sierra Vista. She talked to her parents today and they said the Monument Fire is about 3 miles from their retirement community. Good news is there's no evacuation order - yet. The bad news is that our favorite Mexican restaurant just east of Sierra Vista burned to the ground.

Prayers for all of the folks in Cochise County and the surrounding area.