Rodeo-Chediski Wildfire

[jyoutz]

Well, I'm back to working normal days and hours after 1 1/2 months of dealing with the Rodeo-Chediski Fire Complex. What an adventure-even for a forester who has been there done that: my family was evacuated for 2 weeks (my boys met President Bush at the evacuation shelter), I spent 2 1/2 weeks on the Incident Management Team, mapping the fire's progress through my rural community. And now, I've spent the past 16 days coordinating the largest aerial seeding project ever done. The statistics: 469,000 acres burned (276,000 in the reservation where I work). On the reservation, we seeded 175,000 acres (the Forest Service also seeded alot of acres - I don't know how many). We used 4.9 million bulk pounds of winter wheat/native grass seed mix to do the 175,000 acres. 6 AG tractor planes took 16 days straight to accomplish the mission. Each load amounted to about 3100 pounds and seeded about 115 acres. Do the math-that's a lot of plane trips. We had 112 truck trailer loads of seed mix. I'm burned out and going to San Diego next week to sit on the beach with my family for a week. I thought that this info would be interesting to our members.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Jim you have a great week in San Diego. This time of year it's as close to heaven as you're gonna find north of the Mexican border.

Besides the wonderful weather this time of year San Diego has the friendliest people. They're not as ornery as those in Los Angeles nor as unique or different as those farther north.

My wife and myself have often talked about how much fun it would be to retire in Pine or Strawberry. I was born in the Verde Valley and have tons of family there. I was in the Ace Hardware in Camp Verde some years ago buying something or another for my dad. A nice big strapping young man came up and asked me if I'd worked for Harvey Lacey of Wylie Texas since that was on my T shirt. After all, Harvey was a cousin of his. I had to explain that I was indeed the Harvey from Texas. And then I wanted to know how abouts did I become his cousin? The good thing about cousins in Arizona is seconds, thirds, etc count just as much as firsts.

Come October we'll go north of our house about twenty five miles to HWY 380 and turn left. It ends at I25 in New Mexico. We'll kick west through the mountains and drop down to Show Low. I'm sure it's not the same as it was our last trip. But it will return to it's former self eventually. The lucky amongst us will get to watch it happen.

 

[MarkV]

Jim,
I’ve been following the fire on the news and even though it is part of the natural progression of forests it sure looks devastating. Glad your house was OK and you sure do deserve a vacation. It sounds like one heck of a seeding project. I didn’t even think about the need for erosion control after a fire like that. Sounds like your area has just been changed for a lifetime.

MarkV

 

[Golfgar4]

Hi Jim,

Man, you really deserve that rest! Enjoy it! /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Saw a report on the T&V about the need (rush) to get the seed down and growing for erosion control. They showed shots of straw dams being built. WOW! That's really amazing.

The wife and I were talking about taking a couple of weeks in late October and vacationing out in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, but with all of the problems they've had, we're having some second thoughts.

Have a great vacation!

 

[jyoutz]

Don't let this past summer's wildfires prevent you from vacationing in the Southwest. We've had lots of rain during the past month and the fire hazrd is over for the year. The grass is green now and fall should be beautiful.

 

[jyoutz]

The sad thing about this fire is that this occurred exclusively in Ponderosa pine forests. This species is not adapted to catastrophic stand replacement fire. It's natural ecology is frequent low intensity underburn type of fires. The increased forest density prior to the fire led to this unnatural event. This has been building for the past 100 years, ever since man started suppressing natural wildfires which used to keep the forest thinned.

 

[jyoutz]

Thanks Harv, I'm sure that we'll have a great time on the coast. Interesting that you're from Camp Verde. That's a nice area and Strawberry-Pine area is a great area, close to all the services in Payson, but tucked back in the forest. Good climate there, not too hot or that cold like it is above the rim. To see the fire, just drive along HWY 260 from Show Low to Heber. This will give you an idea of the fire, but the worst is below the rim on the reservation which is not visible from the highway.