Well, maybe jubilation is overstating it… but a wetting rain did fall on the Horseshoe Fire last night, 0.12″ at our house! Lightning started two new fires, one in Pinery Canyon and one in Brushy Canyon, and the Forest Service is flying over the area … Continue readingJubilation
One of Flagstaff’s very fine photographers, Keiji Iwai, has given me permission to post a link to his spectacular time-lapse movie of the Schultz Fire in Flagstaff: http://keijiiwai.com/Clients/SchultzFireSmall.mov
This morning at the fire briefing in Portal, the new map for the Horseshoe Fire hadn’t changed from the last one: the small amount of burning yesterday was in the interior of the fire. Today a major topic at the fire briefing was the weather. … Continue readingThunderheads
Be sure to check yesterday’s post––I added photos of the Schultz Fire in Flagstaff, which my sister sent!
This morning’s briefing on the Horseshoe Fire was held under cloudy skies, with a ragged trace of virga falling to the northeast. The transition from Brad McBratney’s fire crew to Wayne Cook’s fire team became official this morning. (Brad is standing at the far left, … Continue readingFire Line Holding in South Fork
Remember our Type 1 fire team led by Dugger Hughes? They are now in Flagstaff dealing with a much more extreme situation than the Horseshoe Fire presented. The fire in Schultz Pass flared from a tiny wisp of smoke (which my sister Kelly Burke noticed … Continue readingFirestorm in Flagstaff
Yesterday the Horseshoe Fire was inordinately well-behaved: I saw no smoke! The fire crews report that the fire continues to back into the South Fork of Cave Creek Canyon in the vicinity of the trailhead, although you can see by comparing today’s fire map with … Continue readingSuppression in South Fork
The Horseshoe Fire’s continuing advance north has triggered new suppression efforts. It is still backing down drainages in South Fork Canyon, working its way toward the road. Suppression has become necessary to try to keep the fire from moving into the main Cave Creek Canyon. On the … Continue readingRenewed Suppression of Horseshoe Fire
Years ago, I joined Lee Harper for a World Wildlife Fund trip into the Brazilian Amazon. Lee had studied army ants in rainforest near Manaus, setting out to learn how big a forest patch needed to be in order to retain its army ants and … Continue readingArmy Ants
At this morning’s briefing in Portal, fire team leaders summarized yesterday’s work and laid out the tasks for today. The fire’s behavior yesterday was somewhat unexpected, because the big cliffs failed to delay it as much as had been anticipated. As the new fire map … Continue readingHorseshoe Fire Briefing & Map