Mt. Lemmon Burning

[NUKE]

Terrible fire on Mt. Lemmon in Tucson, prime forest (and homes) going up in smoke. The smoke plume is huge, 60 mph winds not helping

Im in Tucson for 2 days...... never even knew about the fire till I got here, and it's a major fire.

[Maverick]

Nuke,

That is one of two fires going in the Tucson area. The other is in the Rinconm Mtns. and will be allowed to burn itself out. At least that was the plan efore the winds came roaring into town. Friday we are expecting more winds in the 25 to 50 mph range. They are heavier as they hit the mountain. No chance of rain either.

Last I heard it was a human caused fire.

[Dune]

The forests are going to get thinned out one way or another.  By the Forest Service or by burning themselves flat.  

[Pooh21]

That sucks, its nice up there. I remember a few years ago when they had a fire up there the smoke plume covered almost the whole mountain range and musta went up 30k or so.  It was huge. What part of the Rincons is on fire? I used to go shooting up there.

[Syzygyone]

Here's hoping that Ariz does't suffer like Colorado did last year.  My house was 25 miles from the Heyman fire and we had soot and ash falling for weeks.

Luckily it's been raining lots this year so the fires that get started aren't going anywhere fast.

GL to Tuscon!

[Maverick]

Update.

About 9:00 AM mtn. std. Thursday the fire on Mt Lemmon was 400 acres. By 10:00 AM Friday it was over 4,000 acres. Quite a bit of the community up there is now ashes. The ski area is heavily threatened and about 200 cabins / homes were destroyed overnight. More high winds in the forcast for several days.

Arizona now has more fires burning than any other state and they are growing due to dry high temps. and high winds. No rain in sight for at LEAST the next week.

[TracerX]

Hey Syzygyone, I don't know how bad Colorado suffered last year, but Arizona had its worst forest fire in history last year.  Might not have been as big as Colorado's, but if you count it by % of available forest area, I am sure Arizona's was more devastating.  I just got back from Colorado last week, and things are looking great there this year.  Very green.  Arizona forests look like a bunch of match sticks waiting to be lit by comparison.  

Not trying to be critical, just want to note that this is our second bad year.  Sometimes I wonder how mother nature ever recovers from these disasters.  

Our family has a cabin in the White Mountains of Arizona outside of Greer, and when I was very young, there was a fire that came within 200 yards of our cabin.  The fire crews put up a fire line supported by flying water tankers that saved our cabin (and many others).  One water tanker crashed and died durring the ordeal less than half a mile away.  I think it was an A26, and we still have one of the bent prop blades stashed under our cabin somewhere.  Anyway, the area is only now starting to show signs of recovery (30+ years later), with trees growing throuout most of the burn area, most of them are very small.  So it hurts to see so much of Arizona on fire these past two years.

[Syzygyone]

I didn't mean to demean AZ problems.  I said to send the rain to the South West.    Gawd knows we here know what it's like.  Our's last year was the worst in history too.  This year we are recovering but water is still heavily rationed.  Now with all the rains we've had, we got bad flooding.   But, such is life.

Er well such is life
because everyone down stream in AZ and CA are using rocky moutnain runoff water for their fountains

Actually that's true.  Gonna be some interesting water law fights in the upcoming years.  

Good luck and stay cool!:cool:

[TracerX]

Syzygyone,

Thanks for your concern, I was just pointing out that Arizona's problems last year got lost in the shadow of Colorado's inferno, and that makes this year all the worse. You’re right about the water situation, and we will take all the water leftovers you can send our way. We have your water by the way to thank for that big ditch that people keep coming to look at in our state.  


No matter how hard I try, you'll always be cooler.     It is so hot here in AZ.

[NUKE]

Originally posted by tracerx
Syzygyone,

Thanks for your concern, I was just pointing out that Arizona's problems last year got lost in the shadow of Colorado's inferno, and that makes this year all the worse. You’re right about the water situation, and we will take all the water leftovers you can send our way. We have your water by the way to thank for that big ditch that people keep coming to look at in our state.  


No matter how hard I try, you'll always be cooler.     It is so hot here in AZ.

Actually I think the Az fire last year ( 3 fires merging into one I believe) was bigger than Colorado's fire....something like 400,000 acres lost.

June–early July, mainly western U.S.: Hayman fire in Pike National Forest destroyed 137,760 acres and 600 structures, making it the worst wildfire in Colorado history. In central Ariz., the 85,000-acre Rodeo fire, which had already been declared the worst in Arizona's history, merged with the Chediski fire to form an inferno that destroyed 468,638 acres and more than 400 structures. Large wildfires also burned in Alaska, southern Calif., N.M., Utah, Oregon, and Ga.

Firefighters faced a daunting 50-mile-wide fire line Sunday as they battled monster blazes that swept through a half-dozen towns and threatened the city of Show Low, Arizona, with a frightening wall of flames shooting 200 to 300 feet into the sky

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/06/23/arizona.wildfires/

[TracerX]

Wow Nuke, that sounds worse than I even remember it being.  

[hyena426]

washington state had a bad fire about 3 years ago,,i know how ya feal,,my little town allmost burned up,,over 300,000 acers burned,,,we even had a pby flying over dropping fireretardent on the fire,,,was cool to see the pby in action,,,but sucked to see so many loose there homes,,i hope the tucson gets some releif soon

[Wlfgng]

update?

[Maverick]

Quick update. The fire is still burning. I don't know how many acres at this time as I have been away from home. According to what I saw and heard the day before almost all of the community od Summerhaven is gone. The "main drag" was hit hard and just about every building was lost.

About 250+ homes are gone. The fire is moving towards another community named Oracle located on the back side of the montain to the north. The winds were still up there about 20 to 30 kts or better all day. Today the wind shifted from blowing towards the north to the east.

I just grabbed a newspaper and the front page has these stats as of Tuesday AM. 19,500 acres burned, 15% containment, 950 firefighters (AZ is number 1 priority for category one hotshot wildfire crews). The fire has already traveled 2/3 of the way towards Oracle. The shift in wind direction to the east   is a good sign that the fire may not get much closer as Oracle is still to the north.


FWIW if you like, go to Yahoo and check weather for Tucson. You can see the forcast and if you look at satelite maps you can see the smoke plume from space on normal visibility. There is another fire in northern AZ also visible.

[cpxxx]

I've seen pictures of it on the prime time news here and in Britain, you know it's bad when it makes it onto the news here. So many people have lost their houses.

I'd love to be a tanker pilot and do some good. Someone pray for rain.