22 WFU Fire
Location: 12 miles southeast of Tusayan, Kaibab NF, Coconino Co. AZ
Date of Origin: 05/06/2008 at 1430 hrs.
Cause: Lightning
Situation as of 05/22/08
Total Personnel: 5
Size: 1,255 acres
Percent Contained: 100% ???
Kaibab NF no longer reporting on the 22 WFU Fire, although it is still burning and growing. Last known report indicated torching and spotting in ponderosa pine with short duration crown fire runs. Last reported acreage may represent some desired or projected size, not actual fire size.
RED FLAG WARNING: Unseasonably strong low pressure system over the Great Basin and northern Arizona will result in yet another very windy day across all of southeast Arizona today (05/22/08). The combination of the strong winds, low humidities, and a very high to extreme fire danger rating has prompted the issuance of a red flag warning.
Winds west 15 to 25 mph with gusts to 40 mph in the evening decreasing to 10 to 20 mph overnight.
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Situation as of 05/20/08
Total Personnel: 5
Size: 1,010 acres
Percent Contained: 65%
The 22 Fire has now exceed pre-planned size and has expanded beyond the pre-planned boundaries.
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Situation as of 05/19/08
Size 964 acres
Percent Contained 65%
Fire is moving again after smoldering in rains last week.
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Situation as of 05/14/08
Total Personnel: 5
Size: 900 acres
Percent Contained: 65%
InciWeb quote: Fire managers are pleased with the results of this wildland fire use event and the resource objectives that were met. The resource benefits to this area include hazardous fuels reduction, cultural resources and wildlife habitat protection and forest health improvement. Fire managers will continue to monitor the fire area.
Interpretation: The 22 WFU Fire did not blow up and destroy tens of thousands of acres of cultural resources and wildlife habitat as did the Kaibab’s Warm WFU Fire in 2006.
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Situation as of 05/13/08
Total Personnel: 45
Size: 812 acres
Percent Contained: 60%
The Kaibab NF has announced that the desired management area for this event is 1200 acres. No NEPA documents, such as Environmental Analysis or Environmental Impact Statements have been prepared for the “treatment.” No public involvement process was been implemented prior to this Federal action.
However, should the 22 WFU Fire get out of control, or do damage to resources, then a full NEPA process will be required prior to any rehabilitation efforts or actions.
No announcement has been made regarding the cost of this unprepared burning of public forests, nor of the damage to resources that has occurred.
Fire progression:
05/07 __ 25 acres
05/08 __ 133
05/11 __ 650
05/12 __ 812
05/14 __ 900
National Fire Weather report: Yesterday’s Red Flag Warning has been lifted. A strong cold front will continue to move across Arizona today bringing areas of rain and snow along with isolated thunderstorms, much higher afternoon minimum relative humidities, and much cooler temperatures. Locally accumulating snowfall will occur above 6500 feet over portions of northern and central Arizona. After a drier day on Wednesday scattered showers may return to portions of eastern and central Arizona for Thursday and Friday.
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Situation as of 05/12/08
Total Personnel: 45
Size: 650 acres
Percent Contained: 52%
Fuels Involved Grass, ponderosa pine, pinon juniper
Summary: The “22″ Wildland Fire Use fire is currently burning in a fairly open ponderosa pine stand interspersed with meadows. Roads and previously burned areas to the north, northeast and east will limit potential for significant growth. The fire is moving gradually to the southwest as local fire managers predicted. The “22″ Fire will continue to be managed as long as resource objectives are met.
Fire Behavior Primarily surface fire with 1-2 foot flame lengths, isolated interior tree torching.
Weather: Red Flag Weather Warning for strong winds
Current Wind Conditions: 8 mph SW
Current Temperature: 70 degrees
Current Humidity: 10 %
Remarks: Local public interest is high and being addressed by Fire Information Officer. So far, no significant smoke impacts to communities.
Statement released by Kaibab NF: WILLIAMS, Ariz. - Thunderstorms passed over the Kaibab National Forest on Tuesday afternoon igniting several fires on the Kaibab National Forest between Williams and Tusayan. Suppression actions are being taken on all of the new fires except the “22″ Wildland Fire Use fire on the Tusayan Ranger District. The “22″ Fire is about 25 acres, 10 miles southeast of the Tusayan community and is being managed for resource benefits. All of the other new starts have been contained at less than an acre.
The resource benefits from the “22″ Wildland Fire Use fire include: reducing hazardous fuels, protecting and improving wildlife habitat, protecting archaeological sites and restoring fire in its natural role in the ecosystem. This area has benefited from numerous prescribed fire projects over the past 5 years. These treated areas will act as natural barriers to rapid fire spread and will assist fire managers in keeping the fire within a pre-determined area. Actions have been taken to secure the north and the east sides of the “22″ Wildland Fire Use fire to allow it to back slowly into the wind toward the southwest.
Each natural ignition in a fire use management area must meet specific conditions before it can be managed for resource benefits. Some of the criteria include: whether threats to life, property or resources can be alleviated, if sufficient resources are available to manage an incident over the long-term and whether the potential risks outweigh the benefits of a specific wildland fire use incident. If the risks outweigh the benefits, the fire will be suppressed.
Once the decision is made that a fire will be put into wildland fire use status, fire managers actively manage the fire by determining the appropriate boundaries, weather conditions, fuels conditions, etc., under which the fire will be allowed to burn. The “22″ Wildland Fire Use Fire will be managed as a natural part of the ecosystem in a defined area as long as it continues to meet resource objectives.
The cultural resources referred to to the Kaibab NF pronouncements are the ruins of thousands of Indian dwellings, often made of adobe bricks, and agricultural fields dating back a thousand years or more. And yet the Kaibab NF officially denies that the former residents managed that landscape with anthropogenic fire. Instead they claim that all historical fires were “natural.”
How’s that for braindead biased (even racist) non-science? Denial of the obvious for political reasons is one of the problems a highly-politicized, anti-human being Federal land management agency suffers from. Lysenko-ism in forestry. That current PC racist non-scientific anti-history politically-motivated fatheadedness is not limited to the USFS, either. The Grand Canyon NP insists that what is obviously a human-built cultural landscape is “wilderness,” apparently out of some sort of sick and twisted paganist superstition based on Euro-centric notions of racial/cultural superiority. In the prior century we called that social-Darwinist Nazism. I don’t know what to call it today. Any suggestions?
The 22 Fire has now exceed pre-planned size and has expanded beyond the pre-planned boundaries. Of course, WFU “pre-plans” were made at the spur of the moment and are routinely violated, as was the case with the Kaibab’s Warm Fire (2006).
There has been no formal “pre-plannning,” no NEPA process, no Environmental Impact Statement, no environmental analysis, no public notice or request for comments, no legal process whatsoever on the 22 Fire, as there was none of the Warm Fire. Just low-level government functionaries out on a lark, burning America’s forests, and spitting on the Rule of Law.
Who did the “pre-planning” on the thunderstorms? The locations of the lightning strikes? This kind of Animal Farm gibberish is both tiresome and expensive. I’m sure God wasn’t consulted during the pre-planning phase — where is all of this audacity and mis-use of the English language coming from?
Note: the same sort of verbiage was issued by the Kaibab NF for the Warm Fire, which blew up in strong winds to become a 60,000 acre disaster costing over $7 million to suppress and many more millions to rehabilitate. See Back to the Rim [here].
The Tusayan Ranger District is also where three campers were charged last month for igniting the X Fire. See [here].