Wallow fire burns through Greer, Arizona

Bill Gabbert
June 9, 2011

Updated at 8:30 p.m. MT, June 9, 2011: A damage assessment of the fire’s run through Greer last night revealed that 22 houses burned. More information. And the size of the fire has been revised again. Wednesday morning it was reported by the incident management team to be 389,000 acres, then Thursday morning, 348,235, and later on Thursday, 386,690 acres and for the first time, some degree of containment: 5%.

Information from the IMTeam released tonight:

Dozer line construction took place along Highway 260 going west from Eagar to Highway 373 junction; then southeast to Greer Lake in prep for burnout for tonight’s operational period. Firefighters are prepping with dozer line in the south end of Greer Valley heading southwest to Highway 273 at Sheep’s Crossing for an additional burnout. Dozer line will take place on the east side of Escudilla Mountain extending southeast towards Luna, New Mexico for burnout. All fuel moistures are extremely low.

Updated at 4:01 p.m. MT, June 9, 2011: Replaced map of north portion of Wallow fire with updated version.

Updated at 2:57 p.m. MT, June 9, 2011: Added a new type of map, showing Fire Radiative Power, or fire intensity.

Updated at 11:56 a.m. MT, June 9, 2011: An update from the incident management team posted at InciWeb at 11:00 a.m. MT included information about evacuations, and this information:

Size: 348,235 acres based on last night’s infrared flight
0% contained
Structures lost: 16
Fire Upate: Last night, fire crews concentrated their efforts prepping roads and dozer lines for burnout operations south of Route 851 and Circle Flat area that leads into New Mexico. Fire activity increased on the west side of the fire towards the communities of Greer and Eagar due to high wind and low humidity.Crews are currently stationed at Big Lake to reduce travel times, ensuring firefighter safety. Structural protection is in place in Greer, South Fork, Eagar, Alpine, Nutrioso, and Escudillo Flats. Firefighters will be conducting burnout operations on the northern and eastern portions of the fire to p limit the fire’s spread. Firefighters continue to hold line, mop-up, and patrol other areas of the fire. Creeping, smoldering, and active backing fire with short upslope runs was observed yesterday on the southern portion of fire. Firefighters are constructing indirect line and conducting burnout operations. Today southwest winds of 8-15mph with gusts to 25 mph are expected.

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Updated at 9:22 a.m. MT, June 9, 2011: added information about the 747 and DC-10 air tankers.

Wallow fire 6-7-2011. In this long exposure, you can see the trails of what appear to be firefighters with headlamps carrying lit drip torches igniting a burnout. Photo: Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest

The Wallow fire burned through the small unincorporated community of Greer, Arizona Wednesday evening. Greer has a population of about 177 people and some tourist lodges. The incident management team posted this at InciWeb at approximately 10:00 p.m. Wednesday:

Fire has gone through Greer. We do not know the extent of the damage at this time. Firefighters are on scene in Greer conducting structure protection activities.

The last acreage reported was 389,000, a figure supplied by the incident management team Wednesday morning. That will no doubt be revised upward later today. They are reporting that the fire is 0% contained.

Very Large Air Tankers

KPHO, the CBS television station in Phoenix, reported on Wednesday that Evergreen’s 747 Supertanker was going to be used:

PHOENIX — Fire officials said they are bringing in a Boeing 747 supertanker that is retrofitted to drop a mile-long line of fire retardant.

Evergreen International Aviation said the supertanker has more than eight times the drop capability and twice the speed of any other federal air tanker currently fighting fires.

That report, even though it was picked up by numerous web sites and spread around the internet like, uh, wildfire, is incorrect. Wildfire Today talked with Steven Daniels who leads the 747 Supertanker program at Evergreen and he said the 747 is not being dispatched. As we reported yesterday in a story about the use of Very Large Air Tankers, the U.S. Forest Service is not interested in agreeing to an exclusive use contract with Evergreen or 10 Tanker Air Carrier for their 747 or the DC-10 air tankers.

However, Rick Hatton, the CEO of 10 Tanker Air Carrier, told Wildfire Today Thursday at 9:30 a.m. MT that one of their two DC-10 Very Large Air Tankers, Tanker 911, was en route to Phoenix Mesa Gateway airport to work on the fires. They still do not have any kind of a contract with the USFS, so they are being activated through a Call When Needed contract the company has with CalFire. This is the same methodology used when the DC-10 was used in Texas a few weeks ago. The other DC-10, Tanker 910, is on a fire assignment in Canada.

More information about the Wallow fire

Scroll down to see more information and the latest maps of the Wallow fire. We will update the maps on Thursday as new data is available.

A call center has been established by the White Mountain Joint Information Center (aka “Call Center”) for information, including evacuation information, regarding the Wallow fire. Their new phone numbers are 702-308-3238, 702-308-3357, 702-308-8227 , and their web site is 593.org. InciWeb is another source.

Here are some links to web cameras in the general area of the Wallow fire:

Sunrise Ski Resort in Greer; web cam #2; may only be available from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. MST.
Springerville, Round Valley High School (Near Eagar); click Time-Lapse
Molly Butler Lodge in Greer; click Time-Lapse
Greercabin.com (a view of a forest and a thermometer, no sky view)

All three of the web cameras in the Greer area stopped providing new images after 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, possibly due to a lack of electricity in the area. The web camera in Springerville is still in operation, but showed very dense smoke and limited visibility at a recorded time of 6:00 a.m. June 9.

Weather data from a RAWS weather station near Alpine, AZ and a RAWS station near Greer, AZ.

Photo galleries at ABC15, Flickr, and at MSNBC.

Springerville cam 1315 6-9-2011 — If you look closely, you’ll see smoke being generated from the Wallow fire just outside of Springerville, in addition to a great deal of drift smoke in the atmosphere. Photo from web camera at Round Valley High School, Springerville, AZ, 1:15 p.m. June 9, 2011

Wallow fire 6-5-2011. Photo: Jayson Coil/US Forest Service

Map of Wallow fire, data 2350 6-8-2011 — Map of the Wallow fire, showing heat (the red and yellow dots) detected by satellites over the 24-hour period ending at 11:50 p.m. p.m. MT, June 8. Two mapped fire perimeters are shown (the red lines) current as of 1:38 a.m. and 9:14 p.m. on 6-7-2011. MODIS/Google

In the map below of the north portion of the fire, (click to enlarge it) you will see what appears to be a burning operation, parallel red lines very close together, north of the fire along highway 260 west of Eagar and along Rt. 76 south of Eagar.

Map of Wallow fire north side, data 1148 6-9-2011 — (Click to enlarge) Map of the north side of the Wallow fire, showing heat (the red and yellow dots) detected by satellites over the 24-hour period ending at 11:48 a.m. MT, June 9. A mapped fire perimeter is shown (the red line) current as of 11:57 p.m. on 6-8-2011. MODIS/Google

Below is a new, to me, type of map, showing Fire Radiative Power or fire intensity. The colors of the dots indicate the relative intensity of the fire over the last six days. Compare the dot colors with the MODIS FRP legend at the top of the page.