Tucson Region

Graham fires likely to merge

The 6,130-acre Nuttall Fire and 6,179-acre Gibson Fire remain in striking distance of Mount Graham's telescopes and could burn more than 50,000 acres as they sweep across the entire north face of the Pinaleno Mountains, officials said Sunday. The two lightning-sparked blazes are expected to merge and continue to strike at Southern Arizona's biggest spruce-fir forest, which hasn't burned since 1685 and is at the heart of habitat for the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel. The fires, stoked by warmer, drier and windier weather in recent days, are also now targeting private cabins at Turkey Flat, radio towers on Heliograph Peak and the Forest Service's Columbine Work Center. "The only thing that will put this fire out is the weather and the lack of fuel as it moves down into the desert," incident commander Dan Oltrogge said in a telephone interview Sunday. With monsoon rains not expected until next weekend - at the earliest - fire managers said they were focusing on creating a fuel break along the mountain range's spine and the road that runs along side it. They are ceding the north side of the Pinalenos to the fire. "It is the safest way we know to approach this fire," said Pruett Small, the fire's operations section chief. In total, the 12,309-acre Nuttall Complex is 5 percent contained, meaning 1/20th of its perimeter is considered secure. Seen from above in a circling four-seat Piper Arrow propeller plane, the Nuttall Complex appeared midday Sunday as a half-dozen hot spots spread across the whole northern face of the Pinalenos, 75 miles northeast of Tucson. A stiff southwest wind pushed the Gibson Fire to the northeast, away from the telescopes, but a virtually unbroken line of fuel lies in the mile or so between the flames and observatories. The column of smoke was mostly milky white, but at times it became dirty gray, even jet black, as flames consumed heavy timber. Two lumbering military C-130s swooped down to nearly skim the treetops and Large Binocular Telescope, extending a distinct belt of rust-colored flame retardant along the mountain's crest. Federal officials listed 95 homes, 10 commercial buildings and 2 outbuildings as threatened. Many of the at-risk structures are near Columbine, which Oltrogge said "will be in dire straits in the near future." But Turkey Flat, site of many private cabins, wasn't immediately threatened Sunday night. Fire crews, including 18 "hotshots," returned to the field Sunday morning after being pulled off Saturday due to extreme fire behavior. There were 11 helicopters and 805 people assigned to the fire, which has cost $3.4 million. Flames have at times jumped from treetop to treetop in a devastating crown fire, while airborne embers were being pitched ahead of the main blaze to start spot fires, according to the Southwest Coordination Center in Albuquerque. Firefighters are trying to thin along Arizona 366, also known as the Swift Trail, so it can be used as a fuel break, just as Mount Lemmon Highway was employed in 2002 and 2003 during wildfires in the Santa Catalinas. But the telescopes, Heliograph Peak and most valuable squirrel habitat are all on the side of the Swift Trail where the fires are burning. Sprinklers have been turned on at the 8.6-acre observatory site, which includes the University of Arizona's $110 million Large Binocular Telescope and two smaller, completed instruments. The Gibson Fire began June 22 and did little for 10 days, but on Friday it erupted and began to rival the Nuttall blaze in size and intensity. Asked why firefighters couldn't stop the Gibson Fire while it was small, Oltrogge noted that it was first managed by the Coronado National Forest, not his team. But, he said, the fire was in such steep, rugged country that it was too dangerous to put crews on the ground there. "We can't put the fire out just with water from air support," he said. "Where it was, you weren't going to put anyone on the ground." Studies by the UA's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research found wildfires once swept across the Pinalenos lower-elevation ponderosa pine forests every four to six years. But until now fire had been absent from many of those areas for decades. First, grazing reduced grasses that carried fires, then fire suppression let fuels build up. The wetter, cooler spruce-fir forest hasn't seen a stand-replacing fire since 1685, leading researchers to conclude long ago it was overdue. "It's the one we've all been watching and waiting for," said Tom Swetnam, director of the tree-ring lab. "Once in a real long interval, with an extreme drought like we're experiencing, you'd expect a blowout in the spruce-fir where fire would explode over the whole top of the mountain." National Weather Service forecasters said the region will remain hot and dry this week, but winds are expected to slacken somewhat and come more from the west. "There's really no chance of rain," meteorologist Glen Sampson said. Moisture is moving north from Mexico, and it may arrive in Southeast Arizona by next weekend. But the atmosphere remains very dry, Sampson said, so storms may bring more wind and lightning than rain.