Here’s a very quick update for you: Alan and I headed up canyon again and, with Noel Snyder, evacuated much of the cabin of absent friends. We’ll return tomorrow to finish the job. A firefighter clearing brush at the cabin said that the fire is still burning up high and has not yet moved into South Fork.
The main Fire Camp is along Highway 80, at the junction with Portal Road and next to the Chiricahua Desert Museum. According to Jeff, it is now a Fire City bigger than Portal, Rodeo, Apache and Paradise combined, and is temporary home to 750 firefighters (the number grows!). Anyone can stop in there to ask for information.
Steve Cullen’s dramatic nighttime photo, taken this morning at 3 AM, shows the shift in the fire’s location, compared with just a day ago (photo in last post).
A lovely Painted Redstart was visiting its nest in the bank of the Middle Fork of Cave Creek Canyon, just next to the cabin as we worked. Lizards were scurrying about. May they survive what’s coming.
