Two prescribed fires set at just the wrong time
By Tom Beal, ARIZONA DAILY STAR, 5/23/08 [here]
Two fires, one burning out of control on the slopes of Mount Graham in Eastern Arizona and another on grasslands in southwest New Mexico, were deliberately set by Coronado National Forest fire managers Tuesday despite “red flag” warnings posted for the following day.
Red-flag conditions — a combination of high temperatures, wind, low humidity and dry fuels — made the Frye Mesa and Whitmire fires hard to stop once they escaped the perimeters of the U.S. Forest Service’s prescribed burn.
The flames forced the Forest Service to close the main road up Mount Graham Thursday, and the popular camping and fishing area might stay closed for the Memorial Day weekend. By Thursday night the Frye Mesa fire had burned about 3,100 acres.
When the Forest Service set fire Tuesday to the brush on Frye Mesa, in the foothills of Mount Graham, the National Weather Service had predicted high winds that afternoon and a red-flag warning for severe fire weather the following day.
“We strongly discouraged them from starting it,” said Bill Turner, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Tucson office. “We had red-flag criteria everywhere.”
The weather service’s Storm Prediction Center had labeled one small area of the United States as “extremely critical” for fire outlook on Wednesday. Frye Mesa and an area on the New Mexico border, where the Forest Service lit the Whitmire Fire, were both in that area. …
[Retired fire manager Larry] Humphrey said the Forest Service will be paying a high price for removal of sweet resin bush on Frye Mesa.
“You could’ve hired a blind man with a hoe and a backpack to go out and grub it out of there for a lot less money than this fire’s gonna cost,” he said. … [more]