Sorry to hear Jbee! FYI, this fire is referred to in the Fire Incident webpage as the Frye Fire. Took me a bit to find it. Natural fires are a part of nature and you just have to accept the fact. Man made ones, on the other hand, are senseless. We were camping on Mt. Charleston once and a man across from us packed up and left his campsite with a fire still in the fire ring.
Some people think if it’s contained in the ring, it’s ok. I saw the smoke and went to make sure he was gone and we put it out. Ignorance or stupidity, it doesn’t matter. It could have been bad.
The West is on fire! Zoom out on the map and you will see the fire status in the west. We had a wet winter and stuff exploded in the spring growth. We haven’t had rain since Feb. and everything is drying out. It’s a tinderbox.
My son’s 1st BSA summer camp was at Camp Geronimo near Payson, AZ in 2004. I remember checking the camp’s web page for updates and they were posting pictures of the cliffs above the camp. We were already considering an alternate summer event. It didn’t look good.
It was almost cancelled because of the Willow Fire up on The Mogollon Rim. I posted
these pictures here before. After the boys went to their activities, I went up to the burn line with 3 other of the scout leaders and took those pictures.
The webpage pictures showed smoke billowing and flames visible on the mountain. They must have been frantic. It’s an old camp, over 50 yrs. old and they were seriously planning evacuation when the fire stopped. Wind or humidity or something changed. Fires are sometimes like living things. Unpredictable as hell. The rains came shortly after. I drove through a monsoon on the way to the camp. That was amazing too! We also got hit with a flash flood in the camp that week. Fire, wind and flood all in a week. Memorable!
The pictures above were just 2-3 weeks after the fire. It was my 1st visit to a burn. Unbelievable!
Hope’s and prayers for the residents and firefighters.
Duane
