South Fork Reopens!

I returned home from Flagstaff to welcome news: the Horseshoe Fire is virtually extinguished! The Forest Service's fly-overs with infrared cameras have shown some remaining hotspots in smoldering tree stumps, but no live flames and no areas of concern.

The final tallies: fire size 3,386 acres; 85% contained; cost $9.8 million.

At last night's final community meeting regarding the Horseshoe Fire, District Ranger Bill Edwards, Jon Kohn and Chris Barth met with folks from Portal and Rodeo. Now the Coronado National Forest's own Type 3 fire response team, working under Darrell Miller, has assumed the final oversight of the Horseshoe Fire. Jon and Chris, both information officers from Wayne Cook's Type 2 fire team, advised us about further development of our community fire plan and said good-bye on behalf of Wayne Cook's crew. Delane announced that she's now a member of the Dalton Gang, having received her official Dalton Hotshots t-shirt.

This past weekend, Jon and Chris joined Peter Warshall in South Fork to photograph and measure stream channel conditions at critical junctures, so that we have a baseline for judging changes caused by sediment that will be washed into the stream when the monsoonal rains hit the debris from the fire. Years ago, the high-intensity Rattlesnake Fire wrought dramatic changes to the streambed, but we had no baseline for assessing those changes. The transformation is expected to be much less dramatic this time, because a low-intensity fire dominated in the South Fork drainage, but Peter's measurements will increase the accuracy of assessments.

Peter reports on the health of South Fork: "The manzanita crop looks great and bears will be well supplied. The bottom riparian from the junction of the Horseshoe trail and downstream is completely intact. Crews have cleared and defined the trail, and old timers will marvel at the ease of walking. They also cleared some of the poison ivy which was rampant this year. The acorn crop also looks good, so the Chiricahua Nayarit Squirrel [= Apache Fox Squirrel] should remain resident. At least three trogons called, and the Painted Redstarts were numerous. There were fingerlings in pools throughout the South [Fork of] Cave Creek channels."

And––hooray!––the roads into South Fork and Herb Martyr are open once again to visitors and hikers.

Attention is now focused on new lightning-ignited fires in the Chiricahuas, particularly the Brushy Fire, but none of those are burning in areas where homes or fragile resources are threatened, and they are being treated as what they are––part of the natural, pre-monsoonal fire regime. Rains should be arriving in a few days, and those are expected to douse the new fires.

Flag

Smoking San Francisco Peaks

(Photos by Narca)

Up in Flagstaff, the Shultz Fire has settled down considerably: the 15,000-acre blaze is now 75% contained, to the relief of the city's residents. While visiting my sister Kelly the past few days, we stopped at the command post to talk to Jim Payne, who had also worked the Horseshoe Fire in Portal. Jim and others told us that the nation's foremost fire rehabilitation team is being sent to deal with the aftermath of the Schultz Fire, because of danger posed by debris flows onto houses and the highway.

Green Gentian near Hart Prairie

The further side of the San Francisco Peaks was still open to hikers, and we spent one morning in the high mountain meadows and aspen stands near The Nature Conservancy's Hart Prairie Preserve. Tall gentians were blooming, Mountain Bluebirds foraging, and high-elevation butterflies flitting past. I guess I must have slipped over the line into serious lepping: the butterfly that most excited me wasn't the stunning Western Tiger Swallowtail––it was the nondescript, fabulous Ridings' Satyr. It was an onery bug, never allowing an unimpeded view!

Ridings' Satyr

What excited Georgia the most was friend Bobby's hot tub.

Jubilation

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 this morning to assess all three fires. It wasn't known this morning whether the new fires survived the rain.

Today more thunderstorms and lightning are predicted, with the possibility of more ignitions. A drying trend will follow. So we aren't yet out of the woods, but did that rain ever feel and smell and sound wonderful last night!

Time Lapse of Schultz Fire

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

Thunderheads

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. Meteorologist Joe Harris boosted his estimate of our chance for rain to 60%, and indeed today the thunderheads have built and are rumbling. While we are all hoping for rain, the firefighters find our pre-monsoon weather to be dangerous too. Dry lightning is the norm, and everyone is very alert today both to new ignitions and for their own safety.

Have you ever been close to a lightning strike, when the air sizzles for an instant and the smell of ozone is suddenly strong? Several of us were birding in the Animas Valley a few years ago when that happened. Three of us immediately hit the ground. I'm not sure what had happened to the survival instincts of the other two, but that day they got lucky.

Thunderheads build over Portal Peak

(Photo by Narca)

Schultz Fire Photos

Be sure to check yesterday's post––I added photos of the Schultz Fire in Flagstaff, which my sister sent!

Fire Line Holding in South Fork

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, dressed in blue.)

6 AM fire briefing at Portal Rescue building (Photo by Narca)

Yesterday's work by fire crews was successful in holding the Horseshoe Fire near the new fire lines constructed through manzanita and pinyon-juniper, close to the South Fork picnic area. A green arrow on the map points to that area of concern. Suppression work there continues today.

The fire bulged a bit on the northeast corner yesterday (see red arrow), and today's control efforts, including water drops, will include that region. The blue arrow points to another potentially active edge of the fire, which will also receive attention today.

The burn now covers 3401 acres and is considered 25% contained. Growth potential is at "medium," and it is still a game of patience.

Pete Miller surprised everyone at the briefing by taking the microphone to express our thanks to the crews from the whole community––his gesture was very well-received.