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Area works to make this season a safer one

Summerhaven isn't totally out of the woods this fire season. Not everything that could burn in the Santa Catalina Mountains has burned, and the woods will be back one day to surround the new log homes sprouting on the ridge lines. As his crews help homeowners clear hazard trees from their burned lots, Mount Lemmon Fire Chief Dean Barnella preaches the same Firewise gospel his department championed before last year's Aspen Fire destroyed more than two-thirds of this village. Now, though, Barnella is armed with a "community fire hazard severity form" and a county ordinance that requires fire-safe construction and vegetation. Elsewhere in Southern Arizona, in Oracle and Madera Canyon and atop Mounts Graham and Hopkins, the devastating example of the Aspen Fire has renewed enthusiasm for clearing brush, thinning trees and planning escape routes. Major blazes in Arizona have been limited so far this year, but wildfire experts say years of drought and decades of fire suppression still create the potential for catastrophe. "The spring moisture was a blessing. It set fire season back by two months," said Jeff Whitney, commander of one of the Southwest's two elite "type I" management teams. "But the other side of that coin is that we've got a better flush of fine fuels at the lower elevations." Recent prescribed burns in the Prescott and Kaibab national forests in central and northern Arizona have displayed "some fairly alarming fire behavior," Whitney said. The Tonto National Forest announced closures last week around the communities of Pine and Strawberry and in the Pinal Mountains south of Globe. Other forests are considering bans on fires and smoking before Memorial Day. Those restrictions will be announced tomorrow, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Jim Payne. One model of fire behavior suggests conditions similar to those of 2003, but below the record levels of 2002. The "energy release component" typically bottoms out in Arizona during winter, then steadily rises until early July, when the monsoon usually arrives. It was below normal in early April but has since shot up dramatically as the region dried out. A critical window

That's what happened in Oracle, where conditions went from too wet to too dry so quickly that plans for a prescribed burn were canceled. It was the third year in a row the Forest Service scrapped such plans, said Coronado National Forest spokeswoman Gail Aschenbrenner. "It has to be dry enough to burn," she said. "But we don't want it so dry that it can't be controlled, so you're talking about a pretty critical window." The Forest Service now hopes to conduct two burns on 500 acres south of Oracle in the fall, said Dean McAlister, Coronado fire management officer. "We'd really like to get in there and burn, but the moisture just dropped to the point where we were afraid we'd damage the larger oaks and plants that we're trying to save in the first place," he said. Though no burns were conducted, considerable elbow grease has been expended in the community, said Brian Lauber, district forester and fire management officer for the Arizona State Land Department. "We got some funds to do thinning, and we've been doing quite a lot of work removing debris, thinning and pruning," Lauber said. The Oracle Volunteer Fire Department and residents of Oracle have done an excellent job "getting some defensible space in the community," he said. Oracle is working toward national designation as a Firewise community. The program educates and organizes property owners and residents in Arizona and nationally to make fire prevention a priority. Risk assessed at building sites

Summerhaven hopes to attain its designation this summer, said Steve Plevel, former district ranger of the Coronado's Santa Catalina District. The fire and the subsequent county ordinance mandating firewise practices accelerated the program, said Plevel, who is preparing the management plan for the Summerhaven Firewise application. Under Pima County's new code, the Fire Department inspects building sites to determine whether a new structure is a moderate, high or extreme risk to burn. The higher the rating, the greater the restriction on building materials. You pile up points for being on a steep slope or for not having an all-weather road, a fire hydrant or enough street space to turn a firetruck around. Barnella said his department has been working with homeowners, offering advice on how to lower the scores by putting in street signs and numbers, or even installing a dry standpipe that enables firefighters to pump water to the site from a distant fire hydrant. Michael Mayo, a Tucson dentist who is building a cabin in the Turkey Run area, where fire spared most of the houses and the forest is still dense, managed to lower his initial score from extreme to high by putting in street signs and agreeing to create a defensible space around his new home. Tough decisions await Mayo on how much vegetation he'll have to remove. Fire Capt. Harry Findysz said Mount Lemmon homeowners have all been cooperative in making the community fire-safe. The Fire Department is also helping residents clear smaller "hazard" trees from their lots and has contracted with a New Mexico logging company to remove partly burned trees that can still be milled into lumber. "You can't hardly get a logging job these days," said Larry Holliday, owner of Holliday Timber Products. "You take what you can get, and this one ain't very good. It's a long ways from the market." Holliday is taking only big trees and hauling them to mills as far away as Colorado. The limbs from those big trees, skinnier ones that have been cut and other "slash" piling up on the hillsides are being gathered by fire crews, volunteers and homeowners for burning in an "air curtain destructor" - a metal container into which air is continually forced. Summerhaven can still burn, Findysz said, although he anticipates mostly ground fires for the next few years. Conditions bad in Pinalenos

Conditions are a bit scarier in the Pinaleno Mountains. Until a few weeks ago, snow covered the top of Mount Graham, the term commonly used for the entire Pinaleno range 75 miles northeast of Tucson. But wetter conditions this winter have done little to dispel fears of a major fire that could take out summer cabins, three telescopes and habitat for the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel. "You walk through the woods and it's crunchy. You dig down into the dirt and duff 6 inches and there's no moisture," said Chris Peterson, fire management officer for the Coronado National Forest's Safford ranger district. Fire crews continue to thin trees along the Swift Trail - the paved road up the mountain - so they can use it as a firebreak. A nine-person crew with a fire engine will soon be stationed near Mount Graham's summit. Fire managers fear most a blaze that starts down the mountain on a hot, dry, windy day, and burns up the steep canyons to the top, where the spruce-fir forest has been decimated by insect outbreaks. That forest of dead trees surrounds the UA's $110 million Large Binocular Telescope, which is expected to become the world's most powerful and may see "first light" this fall. Two smaller telescopes are already in use nearby. Hoping to improve the 8.6-acre site's chances in a wildfire, the UA has already removed about 850 trees 100 feet out from its buildings. It is now seeking Forest Service approval to extend that work another 100 feet into the woods. "In a sense, you can think of it as manicuring the forest," said Anna Spitz of the UA's Steward Observatory. The UA has also added double-paned, tempered windows to the telescope building and put screens on air intakes so firebrands aren't sucked inside. Refresher course in Santa Ritas

In the Santa Rita Mountains, a refresher course in the evacuation plan is an annual event for the 20 or so Madera Canyon homeowners and personnel from the Smithsonian Institution Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins. "We've got one-way-in, one-way-out issues at both of those places, so that evacuation plan is something we make sure everybody understands every year," said Keith Graves, district ranger for the Coronado's Nogales Ranger District. Though snowpack was meager in the Santa Ritas, rain was plentiful and well-timed, and fuel moistures are at three-year highs, Graves said. "We got a real good, constant rainfall that really helped us out this year," he said. Graves was part of a team that helped fight a fire on state land in Patagonia last week, and said that fire showed him what a difference a year makes. "Last year, that fire would have been a major situation," Graves said. "If we get some 100-degree days and some high winds, we'll dry out pretty quick, but we're a lot better off this year than we have been."