Tucson Region

Promise of rain tantalizes near Florida Fire

GREEN VALLEY - A faint rainbow appeared above the Santa Ritas at sunset Thursday, suggestive of the moisture in the air that helped keep a lid on the 20,000-acre Florida Fire. Tucson baked under mostly clear skies and reached 107 degrees - the 31st straight day of triple-digit heat. But forecasters say the puffy clouds that crowned surrounding mountaintops should return today with the promise of rain. After the sun went down, the orange glow of flames could be seen from above the developed portion of Madera Canyon and below the telescopes atop Mount Hopkins. Crews have completed preparations in both areas and also worked to protect structures at Kentucky Camp, a historic site on the eastern slopes of the Santa Rita Mountains. The size of the lightning-caused fire nearly doubled in a day, but most of that was from an intentional burnout operation that appeared to halt the wildfire's advance on its northeast front. As the fire was declared 40 percent contained, fire managers were plotting where to stop the flames on the south side. Pete Gordon, one of the leaders of the suppression effort, spent Thursday scouting rolling grasslands with mesquites on the fire's southeastern front. He was mapping a course for a new containment line where crews can set their own fires and rob the main fire of fuel. "Where I was going through was much gentler terrain than where the fire is now, but still ridges and valleys," he said. "The fuels are definitely lighter. It's much more defendable and easier to build contingency plans if the burnout doesn't go well." One of Gordon's prime tasks was to find escape routes to several "safety zones," areas clear of fuel where crews could escape a running fire "A place you could ride it out without a fire shelter," he said. The weeklong suppression effort has so far cost taxpayers $3.4 million. There were 858 people assigned to the incident, including 15 elite "hotshots" and six other 20-person fire crews. On the east side of the Santa Ritas, one firefighter has already come face-to-face with a black bear sow and her cubs, said Hans Koenig, a field supervisor for the Arizona Game and Fish Department who was stationed at a primitive "spike camp" near there. Illegal border crossers have been seen crossing through such camps. Wildlife officials were particularly concerned about populations of Chiricahua leopard frogs, a threatened species, and a group of rare Tarahumara frogs recently released into Casa Blanca Canyon. "It's the aftermath. When you get the monsoon, you bring in the ash, sediment and other material into the riparian areas," he said. Biologists have already removed several hundred dace, a type of fish, from the range, which also provides critical habitat for the threatened Mexican spotted owl. "We'll probably lose some small mammals and reptiles that were unable to go underground," he said. An electronic sign on I-19 warned southbound motorists to watch for animals due to the fire. But based on the aftermath of the Bullock and Aspen fires in the Santa Catalinas, it doesn't appear that wildfires cause creatures like mountain lions to descend into surrounding, developed areas, Koenig said. It's still unclear how severely the blaze has burned in cherished recreation areas, such Josephine Saddle and trails up 9,453-foot Mount Wrightson. But because the fire has backed downhill slowly, Forest Service officials characterize much of the burning as low-intensity and ecologically beneficial. "There's going to be a lot more anxiety than is merited," said Bob Lefevre, a watershed expert who worked on post-fire rehab in the Santa Catalinas. Kentucky Camp was built in 1904 as the headquarters for a company that sought to collect water from the Santa Ritas and use it for hydraulic gold mining, according to the nonprofit Friends of Kentucky Camp. Volunteers cleared away vegetation long before the fire and firefighters have already built a containment line between the five aging buildings at the camp and the flames, said Mark Doumas, president of the group.