True cost of fire will take years to figure
By Marley Shebala
Navajo Times
WHITERIVER, Ariz., June 27, 2011
Brooks was talking about how the proper use of dirt and water to extinguish a campfire could have prevented the Wallow Fire and can prevent future wildland fires.
Federal fire officials say the Wallow Fire was started by an unattended campfire in Sitgreaves National Forest on May 29. As of Tuesday, the fire had consumed about 530,000 acres of land, 32 homes and four commercial buildings in eastern Arizona.
Firefighters have managed to contain 58 percent of the fire but reported "the southern flank of the fire continues to be difficult to control."
The area they are having trouble with is on the White Mountain Apache and San Carlos Apache homelands, where the Wallow Fire encroached and has burned a total of about 21,000 acres, 13,000 acres of it richly forested land belonging to the White Mountain Apache tribe.
Fire officials said Tuesday that "extreme fire behavior" in the southern part of the fire forced firefighters to retreat to their safety zones after the fire breached control lines Monday.
Control lines are constructed or natural barriers, such as paved and unpaved road and rivers, and areas treated with retardant to stop the fire's advance.
Safety zones are areas cleared of flammable material where firefighters can escape when the fire crosses the control line.
On Wednesday, fire officials continued to report the southern flank of the Wallow Fire as "difficult to control" because of steep terrain.
Brooks strongly advised individuals to make sure their campfires are completely out by dousing it with water, covering it with dirt, stirring it and then carefully feeling for any heat being emitting by it.
If the fire continues to generate heat, pour more water on it, cover it with more dirt, stir it and repeat the process until no heat can be detected, he said. Only then is it safe to leave it alone.
Brooks and Tony Sciacca, Wallow Fire Zone 3 deputy incident commander, noted that unattended campfires also started two other fires, Horseshoe 2 and Murphy, in southern Arizona.
The Horseshoe 2 Fire started on May 8 and has charred about 223,000 acres in Coronado National Forest. It is 95 percent contained, fire officials said Wednesday.
The Murphy Fire was fully contained June 12 but not before it consumed more than 68,000 acres in the same forest.
Both Brooks and Sciacca noted that weather contributed to the intensity of the Wallow Fire.
"There were four to five red flag days," Brooks said. "That's not normal."
The term "red flag day" means conditions are ripe for wildfires, such as extremely dry conditions and heat combined with strong gusty winds.
According to the Southwest Wildland Fire Predictive Service, most of Arizona will have "above normal" fire potential for the remainder of June, based on temperatures that are "well above normal" and no precipitation.
Brooks recalled how White Mountain Apache leaders and tribal forest management officials decided to impose a ban on all open campfires on tribal land, including portions of the national forest that are on tribal land, over Memorial Day weekend.
Before making the decision to ban campfires, they weighed the potential loss of revenues from visitors who would decide to go elsewhere, versus the possible loss of tribal forestlands is something happened, he said.
Brooks said they chose the ban "to protect the reservation even if it hurt the economy" but the U.S. Forest Service lifted the ban on its land for the holiday weekend.
Brook also said he hopes endangered wildlife conservationists who object to fire suppression activities such as forest thinning and prescribed burns will consider the results of not doing it in the Bear Wallow Wilderness, where the Wallow Fire started.
Sciacca agreed and said that the wildland firefighters would be working on the Wallow Fire for a long time.
"Putting this fire out is just the beginning," Brooks added.
Just the beginning
The 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire area had to be closed to the public for several years because of hazards, such as burned timber left standing and ready to fall at any moment, and dangerous concealed craters created when smoldering root clumps turned to ash.
About 280,000 acres, or 60 percent of the 467,000 acres of land scorched by the Rodeo-Chediski Fire, was on White Mountain Apache land.
And as for the cost, it could be much higher than the $50 million originally stated by fire officials. Fire officials estimate the cost of the Wallow Fire at $80 million.
But the real cost of these fires could be anywhere from two to 30 times more than what is initially calculated, according to a 2002 report by the Western Forestry Leadership Coalition, comprised of state and federal forestry officials.
In its report, "The True Cost of Wildfire in the Western U.S.," the coalition figured the total cost of the Rodeo-Chediski Fire was more than $308 million.
Included in that cost was $122.5 million for loss of homes and property and $139 million for three years of rehabilitation work to stabilize the land stripped of vegetation by the flames.
The coalition counted as "indirect costs" the loss of sales tax revenue and jobs in the tribal community amounting to $8.1 million.
"Job losses in this case were particularly acute; following the fire, two local timber mills were not expected to resume pre-fire productivity, leading to a decline in merchantable timber that would impact the tribal community for multiple generations," the coalition reported. "Generating cost estimates for such a long-term and uncertain future is a challenging and incomplete task."
In a sad irony, the person who admitted setting the Rodeo fire was an out-of-work member of the White Mountain Apache community, who was hoping to get a job fighting the fire. Leonard Gregg of Cibecue, Ariz., said later he never dreamed it would get so far out of control and do so much damage. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for arson but was released June 17.
(The Chediski fire was started by a lost woman who set a signal fire in the forest. She was not charged because there was no criminal intent, but the White Mountain tribe filed a civil suit against her to recover damages.)
Brooks said the it took four to five years to rehabilitate land on the White Mountain Apache Reservation that was burned in the Rodeo-Chediski Fire.
"There's significant impact to the land," Sciacca said. "And there's the emotional cost."
Brooks said the loss of trees and other vegetation resulted in topsoil getting washed away by the annual monsoon and rains in the areas charred by the Rodeo-Chediski Fire.
"The intense heat sterilized the soil," he added. "There's dirt there but it has no nutrients for anything to grow."
"We have a dire concern to improve our public safety," he said. "This facility would greatly benefit our seven communities and change the behavior within our communities."
Piñon Chapter President Bessie Allen said having a daily presence of law enforcement would prevent criminal activity.
"When you are driving down the road, if there's an officer on the road everybody slows down," Allen said. "It's like that in a community, if you see an officer around everybody kind of behaves themselves."
Chapter officials and community members have repeatedly approached the Council to fund the project, she said.
"I don't know what you have to do to convince your leaders that there is a need," Allen said.
Jonathan Nez, who was there representing the Navajo County Board of Supervisors (he represents District 1, which includes the Navajo end of Black Mesa), said the county has stationed a sheriff's deputy in Piñon, but the deputy cannot arrest anyone because the tribe and the county have not yet finalized a cross-deputization agreement.
"All he can do is wave," said Nez, who also serves on the Council.
He said traffic has increased in Piñon since the main roads were paved and some of those visitors conduct criminal activity.
"They're getting smart - drug dealers - they're using secondary roads where there's no police officers, where there's no public safety present and that's what these folks here are dealing with," Nez said.
Supporters of the Piñon public safety facility also questioned why their project did not receive any money from the $60 million loan from Key Bank to construct new jails.
Delores Greyeyes, Department of Corrections director, said the Key Bank loan was allocated to the design and construction of public safety and judicial buildings in three agency headquarters, Tuba City, Crownpoint and Chinle, based on a priority list developed by the previous Council.
In 2007, the tribe increased the Navajo Nation sales tax by 1 percent to pay for public safety and judicial facilities.
"One of my recommendations is, let's revisit that tax set-aside. We need to increase it. The public safety demands and needs are tremendous," Greyeyes said. "We need to increase that in order for us to move a lot faster in meeting our people's needs in building these facilities."
She commended the community for working on a solution but the same issues and needs are impacting many communities on the Navajo Nation, she said.
Committee member Alton Joe Shepherd (Cornfields/Ganado/Jeddito/Kin Dah Lichíí/Steamboat) supports the Piñon facility and asked the Law and Order Committee to examine where money can be found to build it.
Joe suggested to Witherspoon that he place the issue before the Resources and Development Committee for inclusion in a bond-financing proposal the committee is considering.
"They're looking to have shovel-ready projects and I think this is well and beyond towards that and farther along than some of the other projects being proposed," Shepherd said.
Law and Order Committee Chairman Edmund Yazzie (Church Rock/Iyanbito/Mariano Lake/Pinedale/Smith Lake/Thoreau) proposed revisiting the priority list compiled by the previous Council, and a work session involving the Division of Public Safety.
"They put us to the test," Yazzie said of the push from Piñon.
The committee accepted the report, 3-0, and scheduled a work session Tuesday, June 28, at 9 a.m.