NJFFSA16
05-31-2002, 03:54 AM
Wildfire...sights, sounds, smells.
BEAR WALLOW, Ariz. (AP) - The first thing that registers is the
smell. Instead of the usual pleasing scent of pine through the
trees, there's a pervading smokiness - like when the fire from an
out-of-control barbecue.
Walk around for a bit and your eyes burn.
The message is unmistakable: Mount Lemmon is in big trouble.
Helicopters drone overhead constantly - the thump-thump-thump
drumbeat of their blades beckoning a look through the hazy skies,
in time to see them tugging behind large buckets filled with water
to drop on another fire hotspot.
The only traffic on the 25-mile Catalina Highway that winds and
switches up the mountain on this day comes from water tenders and
fire trucks. Or from other equipment to help the 1,000 firefighters
battling the 20,800-acre Bullock wildfire threatening this
recreational sky island in Tucson's backyard.
At Bear Wallow, firefighter Jay Walter from Scottsdale and his
engine crew helped safeguard six wooden cabins above a steep slope
where other firefighters the night before had burned out grass and
other fuels should the main fire threat make a run up toward the
cabins.
Walter's crew had been assigned to install sprinkler systems and
provide structural protection for an array of communications
equipment and telescopes on nearby Mount Bigelow for the four
previous days.
"This is very steep terrain," said Walter, lauding "hotshot"
firefighters, some of the nation's elite wildfire specialists, for
their work in setting backburns on rugged slopes like the ones
below Bear Wallow.
"These hotshots are in here doing a great job," he said.
"They have their work cut out for them."
Walt Carter, of the Prineville Hotshots in Oregon, who was
hosing down small clumps of scorched soil and small tree stumps,
said, "It's looking really good."
Another firefighter, Cynthia Salaz of Tucson, raked smoldering,
blackened soil just yards from the front porch of one cabin.
"We're trying to do whatever we can to make sure that these
structures won't burn," she said. "I'd want somebody to do it for
my house."
Moments later, a noise roared, like a jet engine, before a puff
of smoke darted skyward across a ridgetop largely hidden in the
smoky haze, before bright orange flames burst a few hundred feet
above the ridgeline. Another large pine or fir tree had torched
like a flare.
In tall-timbered, heavy-fueled sections of forest, there are
more than 100 tons of fuel an acre on the ground, including many
dead trees, said Ron Senn, the forest ranger on Mount Lemmon.
"You get big logs like that smoldering away, that's what's
causing the smoke, but we don't want to put it out," Senn said.
"We want those things consumed, because it just reduces the
fuel loading. The whole forest is just full of this, it's just junk
all over the ground."
Fire spokesman Steve Plevel said blaze is burning extremely hot
in some spots, just creeping along in other places.
"The fire wants to climb the mountain but hasn't been able to
do so on its own yet," Plevel said. "Cross your fingers. We're
doing well so far. We haven't got anybody seriously hurt, and
that's our No. 1 goal."
No homes or structures have been lost yet, Plevel said, but
added, "There isn't anything on this mountain, as much as I love
this mountain, that's worth a person's life."
(Copyright 9690 by The Associated Press)
BEAR WALLOW, Ariz. (AP) - The first thing that registers is the
smell. Instead of the usual pleasing scent of pine through the
trees, there's a pervading smokiness - like when the fire from an
out-of-control barbecue.
Walk around for a bit and your eyes burn.
The message is unmistakable: Mount Lemmon is in big trouble.
Helicopters drone overhead constantly - the thump-thump-thump
drumbeat of their blades beckoning a look through the hazy skies,
in time to see them tugging behind large buckets filled with water
to drop on another fire hotspot.
The only traffic on the 25-mile Catalina Highway that winds and
switches up the mountain on this day comes from water tenders and
fire trucks. Or from other equipment to help the 1,000 firefighters
battling the 20,800-acre Bullock wildfire threatening this
recreational sky island in Tucson's backyard.
At Bear Wallow, firefighter Jay Walter from Scottsdale and his
engine crew helped safeguard six wooden cabins above a steep slope
where other firefighters the night before had burned out grass and
other fuels should the main fire threat make a run up toward the
cabins.
Walter's crew had been assigned to install sprinkler systems and
provide structural protection for an array of communications
equipment and telescopes on nearby Mount Bigelow for the four
previous days.
"This is very steep terrain," said Walter, lauding "hotshot"
firefighters, some of the nation's elite wildfire specialists, for
their work in setting backburns on rugged slopes like the ones
below Bear Wallow.
"These hotshots are in here doing a great job," he said.
"They have their work cut out for them."
Walt Carter, of the Prineville Hotshots in Oregon, who was
hosing down small clumps of scorched soil and small tree stumps,
said, "It's looking really good."
Another firefighter, Cynthia Salaz of Tucson, raked smoldering,
blackened soil just yards from the front porch of one cabin.
"We're trying to do whatever we can to make sure that these
structures won't burn," she said. "I'd want somebody to do it for
my house."
Moments later, a noise roared, like a jet engine, before a puff
of smoke darted skyward across a ridgetop largely hidden in the
smoky haze, before bright orange flames burst a few hundred feet
above the ridgeline. Another large pine or fir tree had torched
like a flare.
In tall-timbered, heavy-fueled sections of forest, there are
more than 100 tons of fuel an acre on the ground, including many
dead trees, said Ron Senn, the forest ranger on Mount Lemmon.
"You get big logs like that smoldering away, that's what's
causing the smoke, but we don't want to put it out," Senn said.
"We want those things consumed, because it just reduces the
fuel loading. The whole forest is just full of this, it's just junk
all over the ground."
Fire spokesman Steve Plevel said blaze is burning extremely hot
in some spots, just creeping along in other places.
"The fire wants to climb the mountain but hasn't been able to
do so on its own yet," Plevel said. "Cross your fingers. We're
doing well so far. We haven't got anybody seriously hurt, and
that's our No. 1 goal."
No homes or structures have been lost yet, Plevel said, but
added, "There isn't anything on this mountain, as much as I love
this mountain, that's worth a person's life."
(Copyright 9690 by The Associated Press)