Maps and status of the Wallow fire

Wallow fire briefing map 6-9-2011

Update at 9:15 p.m. MT, June 10, 2011:

The incident management team has distributed more information, this time correct they say, about the number of structures that have burned in the Wallow fire. Earlier today they sent out a correction, and now there is still another report from them with the following information.

  • “Residences: 29 destroyed and 5 damaged
  • Structures: 35 destroyed”

I am guessing that they think the word “structures” means “outbuildings”.

Information from the Type 1 Incident Management Teams running the fire, especially concerning structures, has been slow to be provided, inconsistent, confusing, and filled with errors. They can’t decide if they want to use InciWeb or Google Docs. Or if they do use InciWeb, it may be used in a non-standard fashion, for example showing zero acres burned in the “Size” field on the front page and forcing the viewer to search around or open secondary documents on the site to find that important piece of information.

I have been biting my tongue about this issue, thinking it would be resolved, but if anything it’s getting worse. There have been too many failings from the Information wing of these teams. Teams that are supposed to be the best of the best… the Type 1 Incident Management Teams. I am sure the firefighters are doing their usual great job of dealing with this extraordinary fire. The people in the shiny, clean, yellow shirts running the Information function need to get their sh*t together.

Update at 11:32 a.m. MT, June 10, 2011. The Incident Management Team reported at about 11 a.m. that the most current mapping from an infrared flight last night determined that the fire has burned 408,887 acres. They are still calling it 5% contained, and:

Last night’s operational period included burnout operations, structure protection, patrolling for spot fires, and mop up in the Alpine area. The predicted weather today is expected to allow firefighters to continue burnout operations. Today’s operational period also includes, building fireline using handcrews & dozers around Springerville and Eager, structure protection, patrolling for spot fires and mop up. The DC-10 air tanker was used during yesterday’s operations in the area of Greer.

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Wallow fire briefing map 6-9-2011
Wallow fire briefing map 6-9-2011

To see a much higher-resolution version of the Wallow fire map above, click here.

A summary of the fire status as of Friday morning, from the incident management team:

This fire (cause under investigation) started 5/29, originated southwest of Alpine, AZ (33 36 7N 109 26 56W). It is being managed under a full suppression (perimeter control) strategy in Fuel Model 8 (Closed timber litter) by an Area Command Team (Loach, IC) with one Type 1 IMT (Reinarz) and one Type 2 IMT (Philbin, IC). Two Type 1 IMT’s moved into management positions this morning at 0600. The fire will be separated into three zones (North, East, and West). Type 2 IMT (Philbin) will transfer out today. As of 6/09 2100, the fire is 5% contained at 386,453 acres (272,490 ac North and 113,963 ac South) with no expected containment date reported.

NORTH: Three-thousand nine-hundred structures reported threatened, one reported damaged (outbuilding), and sixty-three destroyed (29 residence and 34 outbuildings). Difficulty of terrain is high and growth potential is high. Extreme fire behavior with frequent spotting. Rapid rates of spread in all fuel types. Powerlines in the area are threatened. Plan is to focus on securing west perimeter south of Greer and from Escudilla south to Luna, NM, through line construction and burnout. Some resourses will be reassigned to additional zones with incoming IMT’s. Sixteen Type 1 crews, 35 Type 2 crews, 14 helicopters, 192 engines, 15 dozers, 56 water tenders, and other local resources assigned.

SOUTH: One-hundred eighteen structures reported threatened, none reported damaged, and four destroyed (commercial). Difficulty of terrain is high and growth potential is medium. Creeping, smoldering, and active backing fire with short flanking upslope runs. Significant heat generated in canyons on west side of fire. Some spotting continues. Three Type 1 crews, 10 Type 2 crews, 29 engines, 2 dozers, 10 water tenders, and other local resources assigned.

The DC-10 Very Large Air Tanker, Tanker 911, dropped one load of retardant on the Wallow fire on Thursday in support of fire suppression operations near Greer.

A Multi-Agency Coordinating Group (MAC Group) makes decisions about how to prioritize fire suppression resources when multiple fires may be competing for the same resources. Here is an excerpt from the report on the decisions made on Thursday by the Southwest Area MAC Group.

Southwest MAC group decision, 6-9-2011Below, are more maps, including a map showing the location of the three large fires in the state of Arizona and a map showing heat detected by satellites on the Wallow fire early Friday morning.

Map of Wallow fire, data 0305 6-10-2011
Map of the Wallow fire, showing heat (the red and yellow dots) detected by satellites over the 24-hour period ending at 3:05 a.m. p.m. MT, June 10. A mapped fire perimeter is shown (the red line) current as of 11:57 p.m. on 6-8-2011. MODIS/Google

The map below, shows the location of the three large active fires in Arizona: Wallow, Horseshoe 2, and Murphy.

Map of fires in Arizona 6-10-2011
Map of fires in Arizona 6-10-2011

Typos, let us know HERE, and specify which article. Please read the commenting rules before you post a comment.

Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.

21 thoughts on “Maps and status of the Wallow fire”

  1. Thank you fire fighters and God bless all who contributed to fighting the Wallow fire.

    Washington
    State of Az.
    Game and fish.
    What a TERRIBLE job you have done managing our forsets in the U.S.A.

    I hope you enjoy the lovely burned land and LOSS of revenue because of your actions.

    And to the “fine” people that keep our forests,primitive areas closed to everyone except hikers,now have nothing to protect and enjoy.What mess you have created and left our children.
    Shame on you.

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  2. Its a complicated issue, and not one that is going to be solved by past logging practices and timber companies. Using that logic, there wouldn’t be any forests in the first place without people to harvest the timber and save forests from burning itself down. And timber managment and logging don’t even address woodland ecosystems. Everybody knows that fuel loads are up and forest and woodlands should be thinned, but that takes money, and I’m taxed enough allready.

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  3. We are supposed to be happy because only 32 homes have been destroyed, thanks to defensable space, tree thinning around the residential areas and massive efforts of firefighters, but the Apache National Forest is gone.No one alive today will see a mature forest in over 700 square miles.

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    1. I’m sure that Native Americans in the 1300’s lamented the same feelings; then Chris Columbus (or his western counterpart) in the early 16th Century had those thoughts; then there were the observations of Lewis & Clark in the early 1800s too.
      Yes some of the size and intensity of these fires are a result of our 100 years of suppression, but a lot is also because of last winter’s La Nina, high temps, low RH and strong winds. The folks in the vicinity of Mount St. Helens had a similar experience when Mother Nature flexed her muscles, and the Japanese and Indonesians felt the same after their Tsunamis. Fire is a force of nature, and sometimes doesn’t let us just see the “pretty” side of the woods!

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  4. “Effects of Logging Timber harvest, through its effects on forest
    structure, local microclimate, and fuel accumulation, has
    increased fire severity more than any other recent human
    activity. If not accompanied by adequate reduction of fuels,
    logging (including salvage of dead and dying trees) increases
    fire hazard by increasing surface dead fuels and changing the
    local microclimate. Fire intensity and expected fire spread rates
    thus increase locally and in areas adjacent to harvest. However,
    logging can serve as a tool to help reduce fire hazard when
    slash is adequately treated and treatments are maintained.”

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  5. Ok, please inform yourselves about FS policy and fire behavior before commencing tired old rhetoric.

    First, these are not “your” forests. They belong to the nation, and if they are being managed under “environmental principles,” it is because it is the will of the people.

    Second, these fires are largely due to fire suppression, which is in line with timber industry interests. Clearcut logging increases ground temperatures and results in drier ecosystems (http://www.ceres.ca.gov/snep/).

    Bring your facts if you want to weigh in. Blaming “environmentalists” is more of the same old counterproductive partisan garbage that is choking this country.

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    1. No, they’re not “being managed under ‘environmental principles’, becasue it is the will of the poeple”,… they are being hijacked by special interest groups under the guise of legal action. This is a result of a litigation crazed culture fueled by groups like ‘the environmentalists’. Just because something is legal, doesn’t make it right. And just because something is worng, doesn’t necessarily mean its illegal.

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      1. Capt D – you use the term “hijacked by special interest groups” to describe what is happening in today’s National Forests. Having been a Forester for the past 40 years, with most of my career having been on National Forests in the West, I can state unequivically that you are 100% “Right On”. I can remember well the pressure by the Timber Industry to clear cut untold thousands of acres in the 1960-1970s (does anyone remember the “Bitterroot Controversy??); then there are the Special Interest Mining Groups, using the seriously outdated 1872 Mining Act to rape-pillage-plunder our National Forests looking for minerals, then (and still NOW) buying their mining claims at $5 per acre; and let’s not forget the Cattlemen’s Association Special Interest Group that keeps grazing fees on National Forests (and other Public Lands too) at less than $2/acre/month when others in the free market are paying $15-20 per month. And how about the Smowmobile Association Special Interest Groups that challenge area closures on National Forests close to Wildernesses, even when there is abundant evidence of those riders violating the law that prohibits mechanized use inside Wilderness. And then there are the Special Interst groups in the “Gateway Communities” to many of our National Parks (like West Yellowstone) who could care less about anything else than their economic well-being: air quality and over-wintering wildlife be damned – we want to rent motel rooms and snowmobiles!. Yes, some “Special Interest Groups” are now influencing National Forest and Parks fire policy, but they are certainly not the first group to pressure Land Managers with their “Special Interests”, and won’t be the last.

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  6. We absolutely need to start managing our forests correctly again and hold these so-called ennvironmenalists acountable for their actions.

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    1. The folks in the Environmental community just use the Laws passed by our Congress to make the various agencies perform their duties as the Law says; they don’t “win” if the Law is not on their side! Just like the 2nd Amendment folks, or the corporations that are treated as “individuals” under the Law. Can you give us some examples where the Environmentalists need to be “held accountable” for doing something outside the US Law that has resulted in these large fires?

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  7. When I worked with The Little Colorado River Plateau, one of our divisions was the Southwest Forestry Commission and the Four Corners Forestry Service/Community. They taught and promoted clearing the forest floor in order to prevent fueling fires during our wildfire seasons. As I drive through the White Mountain area on 260, even after Rodeo-Chediski, and 277 and 377, I don’t see any evidence that the knowledge is being used. I even hear people complaining that they are limited to what they can cut for firewood when they obtain their cutting permits. I have to say, I believe we bring a lot of this on ourselves from not doing what we should in the way of prevention. What is the point of preserving a forest for a fire? Or, have the state budget cuts hit us so hard we don’t have the man power to get the job done? The only places I see Park Rangers is in ticket booths and their automobiles around town. Their uniforms look cleaner and better pressed than my Sunday going to Mass clothes. Forgive me if I step on toes, but my opinion is we allow this to happen in one manner or another.

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    1. I was involved in appealing the Forest plan in 199089-90 when the Foest Service proposed changing the forest management from Miltiple Use – Sustained Yield (Traditional Forest Management) to “Wildlife Emphasis” (habitat maximization). We brought in the former forest supervisor Nick McDaunah who testified that if the stopped logging and clearing activities as proposed and encouraged by environmentalists and wildlife agencies they would “Fuel Load” the forest floor and burn down the forests within 20 years. They ignored him, adopted the plan, implemented the environmentalists plan and “Wuaalaah! Why doesn’t some ambitious newsman or woman engage in some old fashion investigative Journalism and expose what has been going on rather than simply spouting the dogma of “dry conditions and high winds”????

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      1. Excellent comments, Forest Appeal. Those environmental groups will never admit that their own efforts have now killed thousands upon thousands of animals in that forest. Prime goshawk nesting locations, with unfledged babies in the nests, all dead I’m sure. Furthermore, sustainable logging actually improves forests for goshawks, as they almost always nest near good flyways, and clearcuts provide meadows with necessary prey animals.

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  8. I could not agree more that the information is sorely lacking. How unprofessional for this to be the 2nd largest, and well on its’ way to being the largest fire in AZ, that they cannot correct acreage, grammar, and spelling mistakes that are prevalent on their “information” sites. This is extremely frustrating for anyone that is curious about the fire, let alone for the families that have their significant others on the fire lines.

    Anyways, thanks again for doing your best to update your website with the correct information. And thank you for letting me rant!

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  9. With the way that the winds have been over the past week, the retardant used would have ended up on your hundreds of thousands of people in NM, instead of ON the fire that it was intended for. They needed for them to die down to not put people and aircraft at risk. Hopefully things can start working for the crews and give everyone some relief and help contain the fire. I’m sorry Valerie, that you are having to smell the smoke. Not much anyone can do to help you out about that.

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  10. Those of us in NM, which is suffering a drought, have lost our first awareness of any LOCAL fires — smelling smoke. I cannot differentiate local from Arizona smoke under these conditions much of the time.

    I have breathed and smelled smoke for over a week now. My initial reaction to smoke in Albuquerque was that Sandia Peak was on fire.

    By not using very large aircraft to slow this out-of-control fire(Wallow), decision-makers are endangering all of us downwind (hundreds of thousands of us), making us vulnerable to local wildfire.

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    1. Sadly, many people actually BELIEVE that just calling in more aircraft will save the day. When a fire is running like this one, and spotting 3 miles ahead, all the aircraft in the US won’t make a dent in its spread. They look great, but they won’t work in high winds, and with that kind of spotting and fire behavior, they’re basically useless – but terribly expensive. If the incident commanders thought the aircraft would solve the problem, they’d find a way to get them.

      There’s only a couple things that will change the outcome of this fire – a change in weather, and individuals making sure their own property is ready to withstand the onslaught. Pouring millions of dollars a day on it won’t change the outcome until nature changes its influence.

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      1. Spot on reply, Eric. I was in Yellowstone in 1988 on the roughly 400k acre Clover-Mist fire and until the wind subsides, the temperatures drop, and relative humidities come up, there’s little firefighters can do other than structure protection. Air attack is a great resource for knocking down remote fires where water isn’t available on the ground, but it’s no silver bullet when you’re dealing with 40+ mph winds.

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