Hourly Update

Years of planning, quick response help stop Flagstaff fire

FLAGSTAFF - Fire crews who stopped a 120-acre wildfire before it could move into residential developments in west Flagstaff Wednesday night credited the quick response of air tankers and extensive forest thinning with helping turn the tide. By Thursday morning, crews had a line completely around the fire and were working to put out a few hot spots and deepen the lines, said Cathie Schmidlin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service. Despite the lines, with winds expected to pick up again Thursday afternoon, fire officials are concerned about flareups. Officials with the Coconino County Sheriff's Department said they and Flagstaff police evacuated about 1,000 homes in the path of the fire. Earlier reports had only about 200 homes evacuated. Jim Wheeler, the assistant fire chief in Flagstaff, said years of planning went into Wednesday's successful battle. "The Flagstaff community has been preparing for this event for a long time," Wheeler told evacuees at Flagstaff High School Thursday morning. "The fine initial attack strategy and the air tankers basically saved the day." Addressing the question on the minds of many in the auditorium, Wheeler said all the area's homes were saved. "Your neighborhoods are in fantastic shape," he said to loud applause. "There's a little redness (from fire retardant drops) on some roads and some cars and some trailers. But there's not a lot of black. I'm sure today your favorite color may be red. Certainly, it's not black." Those residents may not be able to return home until Friday, sheriff's spokesman Gerry Blair said. He said the evacuations went smoothly. Officials who ordered the evacuations and marshaled crews and air tankers to stop the fire said they want to assess the potential danger before allowing residents to return to several evacuated subdivisions in the path of the fire. Wheeler said command teams would meet every three hours to assess the risk and let people back in their homes as soon a possible. Law enforcement officers were escorting residents who needed to feed pets or retrieve medications back to the homes. Spokeswoman Brienne Untalan said officials were hopeful they could let residents return Thursday night. The fire started at about 4 p.m. Wednesday along Interstate 40 in west Flagstaff, a city of about 60,000 residents nestled in a thick pine forest. The flames were driven by wind gusts up to 46 mph and it quickly became apparent that homes were in danger. Evacuations were ordered even as seven air tankers were called in and scores of firefighters on the ground began fighting the flames, Schmidlin said. Forest thinning in the past year is credited with preventing a larger conflagration. The heavy tankers repeatedly lumbered across Flagstaff to make their drops as daylight waned. The fire burned 120 acres in heavy forest, and for most of Wednesday afternoon was moving toward developments in the forest. Raquel Romero, fire information officer for the Coconino National Forest, said the city, county and the forest concentrated strongly on thinning the forest in southwest Flagstaff. "We conducted a tremendous amount of prescribed burning and thinning in that area for just this scenario," she said. "Southwest Flagstaff is the most vulnerable because the wind usually comes out of the southwest. We conducted a lot of thinning around A1 Mountain, Woody Mountain and Mars Hill, and multiple evacuation drills have been done." Lowell Observatory also prepared for any future wildfires by thinning the woods around the property, officials said. Because there's been no lightning in the area for several days, authorities said the so-called Woody Fire was believed to be human-caused. An evacuation shelter was opened by the American Red Cross at Flagstaff High School and sheltered 24 people overnight, said Robert Reninger, a public information officer for the volunteer agency. The Red Cross has planned for fires in and around Flagstaff, which is surrounded by forests that are tinder dry from a prolonged drought. "It's fire season, it's been incredibly dry, so fires have been on everyone's mind," Reninger said. Flagstaff police said they had only a few minor incidents during the evacuations, none especially noteworthy. Lt. Chuck Martens said three people were cited for trespassing for trying to sneak back into the evacuated area, one man for drunken driven and two homes had broken windows. However, police believe friends or neighbors may have broken the windows to get pets out. The residents are still evacuated, and may be staying in one of many local hotels that offered free lodging to evacuated residents.