User Panel
Posted: 4/18/2022 9:05:29 PM EDT
This thing blew up fast, 4 acres to 500 from 10AM to 6PM.
I know there's at least two of us that are in the "set" area for evacuation, hope anyone else in the area is OK. |
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Red flag warning tomorrow, gusts to 50mph.
Stay safe, property can always be replaced. |
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I came across a big fire two weeks ago between Prescott and Skull Valley. Not a good feeling driving through that and wondering what's on the road ahead. Luckily it never got to the highway.
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I think the Skull valley fire may have been a controlled burn. They were doing a lot of them a couple weeks ago,
including some not far from the current fire. Hopefully they can keep it from affecting too many homes including mine. On the bright side it will be a hell of a fire break next year. |
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Tunnel Fire north of Flagstaff, a few neighborhoods evacuated this afternoon and reports on the scanner of homes being lost, just a couple miles from me. We're probably in the clear based on wind direction, but are staged to go just in case. Fire season is off to a roaring start this year
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A little too roaring start if you ask me. South of Prescott, South of Flagstaff, Nogales, Bizbee, between Taylor and Show Low,
just west of Clarkdale, Williamson valley... all with no lightning activity, and that's not even the full list. Several of them have occurred where the prevailing winds push them into built-up areas, but didn't start in the built up areas. Remember last year Cali had a bunch of fires start that were arson-caused by a college professor. |
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We evacuated, there's two checkpoints of YCSO to enter, and either you're being evacuated by someone or you're a responder.
We came from the side that had to evacuate. Got a call minutes ago to leave. Already happened. |
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Quoted: Quoted: We evacuated, there's two checkpoints of YCSO to enter, and either you're being evacuated by someone or you're a responder. We came from the side that had to evacuate. Got a call minutes ago to leave. Already happened. Hope your home is safe, man. OP lives in the other side of the mountain that I'm currently looking at right now. Not giving away his area because of opsec. |
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No glow on my side yet. Winds should be calmer tomorrow and there's supposed to be more
resources arriving so I'm crossing my fingers they break the back of this thing tomorrow. I think I've had about two hours of sleep since Monday morning. |
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Quoted: No glow on my side yet. Winds should be calmer tomorrow and there's supposed to be more resources arriving so I'm crossing my fingers they break the back of this thing tomorrow. I think I've had about two hours of sleep since Monday morning. View Quote There's going to be a live stream supposedly at 6:30 tomorrow evening to give us a situation report and whether we can come back or continue to stay away. I'm thinking that what I saw might be a back burn. I'm praying at least for that. |
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Quoted: There's going to be a live stream supposedly at 6:30 tomorrow evening to give us a situation report and whether we can come back or continue to stay away. I'm thinking that what I saw might be a back burn. I'm praying at least for that. View Quote They are absolutely doing back burns, I heard it on the scanner early this evening. The fire has crested some ridges, but because of that it was lingering at the ridge line, so you might be seeing some of that. Also they had a last flight of an air attack plane with thermal to document all the hot spots, and then that data was transferred to the ground crew maps so they could target their activities even with no air assets. |
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Quoted: We evacuated, there's two checkpoints of YCSO to enter, and either you're being evacuated by someone or you're a responder. We came from the side that had to evacuate. Got a call minutes ago to leave. Already happened. View Quote Godspeed, brother. Hope you are safe and sound and your property is intact |
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With the lower winds they are absolutely pounding the crap out of the fire today.
They have enough resources that they're looking for new targets for them, rather than begging for tankers. So far I haven't heard of a single lost structure, not that it hasn't happened. Things are under control enough that they released some of the local FDs to go back to normal service. Hopefully they can do the same for the Tunnel fire, but that looks like it's way larger and harder. |
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Near real time map using satellite detection of the fire.
I've heard about a few threatened structures on the scanner but it sounded like it was sheds and that sort of thing as part of a camp, not houses/cabins. ETA: The chinooks are about as common as mosquitos right now and they have four tankers including a big one hitting this in rotation. |
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You guys stay safe. Hoping these fires are brought under control ASAP and your properties are not damaged.
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That "live stream" that never aired was a shit fest of whining in person.
"Can we go back or what??? Um, hold on sir, ya, not right now because we don't know. However we need to know if the feds are going to pay for this or not... the fuck." There was more interest in arguing about restrictions than actual interest in seeing if if it was safe to go back. If there's another brief, I am going by myself and any mouth breather from out of state whining about noise and restrictions instead of finding out if our homes are still there, is going to get an earful of shut the fuck up. Fuck their feelings, I want to know if it's still unsafe or not. They can argue about their dumb shit later when we normal folk leave. |
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Yeah, the brief was anything but smooth. Hard to predict the exact direction the wind is going to blow 48 hours in advance.
I still haven't heard a report of any lost structures. Lots of scanner traffic on the fire guys protecting them, though. |
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Quoted: Yeah, the brief was anything but smooth. Hard to predict the exact direction the wind is going to blow 48 hours in advance. I still haven't heard a report of any lost structures. Lots of scanner traffic on the fire guys protecting them, though. View Quote I may take a drive there tomorrow and see if I get told to turn around or not. I don't care if they tell me to go back, at least I'll actually know or not unlike that shit fest at Embry |
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Quoted: I may take a drive there tomorrow and see if I get told to turn around or not. I don't care if they tell me to go back, at least I'll actually know or not unlike that shit fest at Embry View Quote I know almost all of Walker is heavily guarded. Literally lost count of the YCSO deputies checking in for Walker duty this evening. I suspect they're just calling anything involving the fire "Walker." If I heard correctly, they even have deputies staged a the Poland/69 intersection in Dewey to keep people from coming in the back way. |
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Quoted: I know almost all of Walker is heavily guarded. Literally lost count of the YCSO deputies checking in for Walker duty this evening. I suspect they're just calling anything involving the fire "Walker." If I heard correctly, they even have deputies staged a the Poland/69 intersection in Dewey to keep people from coming in the back way. View Quote I keep hearing how My Tritle Road is in the most danger, yet my camera shows no change other than what we took as a back burn |
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Sheriff's office estimates approx 25 homes lost so far in the Tunnel Fire. Went from 100 acres or so on Mon to over 16,000 on Tues, at 19,700 as of last night.
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There's no question Tunnel is way worse than Crooks.
The terrain for Crooks is pretty rough but I think that worked in favor of keeping the size down, plus they hit it pretty fast (I think it was reported at 10AM, I saw the smoke at 11AM, and air assets were on it by 2PM. Doesn't help that we have a lot of assets out of state assisting NM, which is why we have a CA team taking over today, hope they do better here than the typical CA results. Our forests are managed better so they might have been handicapped by CA being CA. Winds are from the south today which is very bad for me, woke up to 1/2 mile visibility. They set up a lot of barriers to the fire traveling north the last couple days so hopefully the hold. Yesterday I thought we'd be able to ride this out without evacuating, this morning I'm a lot less confident, we'll see how the winds are. |
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We're pretty much in the same boat, the fire moved through a couple miles to the north of our place but a shift in wind could push it in our direction. Expect to be on standby through the weekend at least. The growth on Tuesday was startling, it advanced several miles in a short period of time.
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Quoted: We're pretty much in the same boat, the fire moved through a couple miles to the north of our place but a shift in wind could push it in our direction. Expect to be on standby through the weekend at least. The growth on Tuesday was startling, it advanced several miles in a short period of time. View Quote Crooks or Tunnel? |
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Are these intentionally set? Fires near two of our largest northern cities almost simultaneous.
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Quoted: Are these intentionally set? Fires near two of our largest northern cities almost simultaneous. View Quote The investigative team to determine that for the Crooks fire just arrived today, but it's almost universally believed it was man-made (as most are.) So the question comes down to arson or accident. When the fire was first spotted, the crews sent to put it out couldn't even see it because it was off in rugged terrain away from view, and there's no lightning to explain how a fire starts that remotely, and no road in the location to account for a careless cigarette (and easily reached/extinguished fire.) As I pointed out above, each of these fires happened in unpopulated areas immediately upwind of populated areas, and occurred immediately before (but not on) a red flag day, and that's pretty suspicious. If you look at prior fires in the area, even accidental ones, none had all those things that contribute to maximum damage going for it the way Crooks and Tunnel fires have. |
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Quoted: The investigative team to determine that for the Crooks fire just arrived today, but it's almost universally believed it was man-made (as most are.) So the question comes down to arson or accident. When the fire was first spotted, the crews sent to put it out couldn't even see it because it was off in rugged terrain away from view, and there's no lightning to explain how a fire starts that remotely, and no road in the location to account for a careless cigarette (and easily reached/extinguished fire.) As I pointed out above, each of these fires happened in unpopulated areas immediately upwind of populated areas, and occurred immediately before (but not on) a red flag day, and that's pretty suspicious. If you look at prior fires in the area, even accidental ones, none had all those things that contribute to maximum damage going for it the way Crooks and Tunnel fires have. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Are these intentionally set? Fires near two of our largest northern cities almost simultaneous. The investigative team to determine that for the Crooks fire just arrived today, but it's almost universally believed it was man-made (as most are.) So the question comes down to arson or accident. When the fire was first spotted, the crews sent to put it out couldn't even see it because it was off in rugged terrain away from view, and there's no lightning to explain how a fire starts that remotely, and no road in the location to account for a careless cigarette (and easily reached/extinguished fire.) As I pointed out above, each of these fires happened in unpopulated areas immediately upwind of populated areas, and occurred immediately before (but not on) a red flag day, and that's pretty suspicious. If you look at prior fires in the area, even accidental ones, none had all those things that contribute to maximum damage going for it the way Crooks and Tunnel fires have. I have nothing CoC compliant to say right now My last camera looksy saw a smaller glow than last night as of one hour ago. |
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Quoted: I have nothing CoC compliant to say right now My last camera looksy saw a smaller glow than last night as of one hour ago. View Quote I just pulled all the satellite data and it really looks like the fire mostly moved southwest today, which is away from almost everyone. Might explain the diminished glow. Crews were still working as late as 9:30PM tonight as well. I'm really hoping there's some web/traffic/game cams set up on senator highway that can ID what could only be a few dozen vehicles coming/going from that area around the time of the fire. Once you're as far south as Palace Station there's not a whole lot of coming and going. Maybe a dream but I know until a few months ago there was a webcam capturing traffic a bit north of Friendly Pines road since you could see the enclosure and camera. |
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We're getting some rain this morning in the Tunnel Fire area, winds are shifting as expected so it's a mixed blessing. They were able to get some air assets on it yesterday and established some lines, but have not declared any level of containment yet.
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They have Crooks at 0% containment, so it may be a while before there's any good news.
The winds here were pretty bad last night, the latest satellite map show the fire, which had grown on the southern side, is now in the middle of the already-burning area. The worry for us is the north winds push it into a new area and much closer to where we are. The winds had been blowing it primarily east which was good for almost everyone as it kept the fire south of populated areas. Next few days will be nail biters since the wind forecast is mostly blowing to the north. ETA: Actually seeing snow flurries here right now. Being AZ, the sun is out and shining as well. Surreal. |
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So I decided to go see if someone there at one of the checkpoints had actual intel. AZ F&G got the permission to let me get a few things. They were not letting anyone living on Mt Tritle Road to stay there still.
The reason why I'm no longer seeing the fires nor any smoke clouds? Because it's gone around us and is behind our side of My Tritle itself. There was active helicopter drops going on in between crests as well as cuts in the forest to protect all of the homes in my area. I saw some overwhelmed and exhausted guys taking a break nearby, so I grabbed all the Gatorade we had and dropped it off for them. I was followed there and back to the checkpoint by AZ F&G. Good people. It could be be a whole lot worse really but it's better than what I had thought or was told it could be by the internet alarmists. |
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Alarmists indeed!
The last news on structures were zero lost, two damaged, and those were sheds that were apparently damaged by structure protection (I suspect a retardant drop.) Compared to the Tunnel fire we're way way better off. These fire crews are f'in amazing. The fire is mostly moving south away from us. I've heard YCSO/AZG&F escorting people all day to get meds, pets that couldn't be found prior to the evac, etc. I think we'll be OK as the confirmed containment line is between us and the fire, and as that expands on the north side I bet they start letting people back in. |
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Quoted: Alarmists indeed! The last news on structures were zero lost, two damaged, and those were sheds that were apparently damaged by structure protection (I suspect a retardant drop.) Compared to the Tunnel fire we're way way better off. These fire crews are f'in amazing. The fire is mostly moving south away from us. I've heard YCSO/AZG&F escorting people all day to get meds, pets that couldn't be found prior to the evac, etc. I think we'll be OK as the confirmed containment line is between us and the fire, and as that expands on the north side I bet they start letting people back in. View Quote I'm still praying for us all. I saw that the workers are camped out by Watson Lake. I may try to find out a schedule and see about driving to CV and ordering a bunch of pies from Aromas and dropping off. |
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Word is they're planning on lifting some evacuation orders tomorrow.
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Quoted: From what I saw it's the north part of Walker after 3PM tomorrow. But it sounds like they're working on finishing the north barrier and when that's done I bet they let in people that was west of the area. View Quote It was pleasantly surreal going in and coming back, no jackasses meaning it was the best drive on that road I've ever had, to include all of Senator Highway. But I want to go home for good, even if it means that the assholes on the roads are back too. |
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They expanded the area that's under "SET" evacuation conditions today to include a much larger part of the forest between the fire
and Prescott. Looks like the fire moved further west and they're concerned winds will push it north later in the week. |
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I just want to be allowed back home at this point as this has been draining my savings being away
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Quoted: We lost ground because of this wind. View Quote The good news is the wind is supposed to shift back, my worry is it blows the fire north first and then west and basically out-flanks us and hits us from the side. I did see that they did a bunch of work laying water lines and sprinklers for structures on Mt. Tritle.
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Quoted: The good news is the wind is supposed to shift back, my worry is it blows the fire north first and then west and basically out-flanks us and hits us from the side. I did see that they did a bunch of work laying water lines and sprinklers for structures on Mt. Tritle.
View Quote I don't recognize any of that, this must be on the other side of us or somewhere else. Our side looks like this, but without the snowcaps but you get the idea. |
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I was a bit confused by the pond in the NF pics, I'm not familiar with anywhere nearby with a water feature outside of
Hasayampa. I could hear the crews working around Mt. Tritle so I don't have any doubt there's a big fire line there. The smoke has lifted a bit so they're planning on running some big tankers today. |
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Just had a wildland fire crew from Nevada come to my house, apparently they're updating maps of the area.
They made a point to say they weren't there to evacuate us, which was a relief. |
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Hearing a lot of fire traffic where they're visiting residences and removing flagging for evacuations in the south part
of Walker, which I think is prepping for people to return. |
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75% containment as of tonight... but they still haven't lifted the rest of the evacuated areas or
the "SET" status for evacuations. |
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Fire management command being turned back over to local teams in the next 24 hours.
They're now reporting 10 structures lost after only reporting 2 damaged for a week, so waiting for more detail there. |
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