At this morning’s fire briefing in Portal, USFS District Ranger Bill Edwards spoke of a shift in strategy from letting the Horseshoe Fire burn through exceedingly rugged terrain in the Chiricahua Mountains, to an attempt today to restrain its downslope movement along the eastern margin … Continue readingStrategy Shift for Horseshoe Fire
The Horseshoe Fire still burns in the Chiricahua Wilderness, working its way northeast along the ridge leading toward Portal Peak. As of this morning, about 2900 acres had burned, and the fire still stands at 25% containment. Horseshoe Fire on June 13 This fire map … Continue readingQuick Horseshoe Fire Update
This morning’s fire map shows the northerly movement through yesterday of the Horseshoe Fire. Today’s moderately strong winds have been driving the fire further north than this map depicts, although not at a very fast rate. For reference, the blue box on the map is … Continue readingHorseshoe Fire Slowly Pushes Northeast
Yesterday’s milder winds drove the Horseshoe Fire a ways north along the spine of the Chiricahua Mountains. The fire encountered rocky bluffs which limited its northward spread and, to the east, sparse vegetation which limited its downslope spread. In the critically important South Fork Canyon, … Continue readingHorseshoe Fire Behavior
At tonight’s community meeting, the Type 1 fire team led by Dugger Hughes passed the torch to Roy Hall’s team, which specializes in the patient monitoring of longer-term fires. Dugger joined Buck Wickham, District Ranger Bill Edwards, and others in updating the community and in … Continue readingWind Coming to the Horseshoe Fire
Firefighters contending with the Horseshoe Fire achieved 25% containment when water drops were successful in stopping the fire’s advance across the upper South Fork drainage. Today’s huge plume of smoke (the biggest yet seen during this fire) resulted from the fire’s run upslope in the … Continue readingBig Smoke from the Horseshoe Fire
For those of you trying to put the location of the fire into the context of the larger region, here is another map!
Yellow and yellow-orange areas show the spread of Horseshoe Fire during morning and afternoon of June 3, 2010. Most recently the Horseshoe Fire has been spreading north and east, touching the bottom of Log Canyon in a couple of spots. Log Canyon is a major … Continue readingHorseshoe Fire Enters Log Canyon
Last night’s fire update in the Portal Rescue classroom was again a valuable exercise in explaining what has been accomplished toward containing the fire, and what we can anticipate. Portaleños packed the place, listened, asked questions, and aired concerns. So far, the fire in South … Continue readingNow We Wait
Last night smoke from the Horseshoe Fire made sleep difficult. When the smoke eased, I slept in––until a phone call from Helen Snyder had me out of bed and out the door in 15 minutes! We met Jim Payne and Ron Kaczor, both public information … Continue readingSouth Fork Today: the Horseshoe Fire