‘I can’t afford to be homeless’ Klagetoh family still displaced as fire officials warn of dry, windy conditions

OAK SPRINGS, Ariz.

As the Oak Ridge Fire continues to burn southwest of Window Rock, fire officials are cautiously optimistic despite dry winds that could reignite hot spots across its more than 10,800-acre footprint.

Containment stood at 26% as of July 4, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. While many residents have returned home, others remain displaced, including Darlene and her three grandchildren, navigating unstable shelter options and mounting health concerns.

A family on the move

“We had to sleep in our car with all the stuff,” said Darlene, who lives 5 miles east of Klagetoh. “My grandson slept on the tuba. Girls, they slept in the middle, and me and her, we slept up there.”

Darlene, who only wanted to share her first name, evacuated with her grandchildren, two of whom have asthma, and several small pets, including rabbits and chihuahuas. After three nights at the Ganado Field House shelter, she said they were told to leave.

“They told us that it’s better to stay there until it’s clear, but we came back, and she said they told us to close this down,” she said. “So we just repacked everything.”

An evacuation shelter remains open at the Window Rock Fighting Scouts Event Center in Fort Defiance, while the shelter in Ganado is in the process of closing. A large animal shelter has been set up at the Dean C. Jackson Memorial Arena in St. Michaels, according to the BIA Wildland Fire Management. Shelter staff are asking the public to stop bringing donations, except for hay, which is still needed.

Although some evacuation zones have been downgraded to a “READY” status, others remain under “GO” orders, and conditions remain hazardous.

“What if we all unload this and ready to lay down? And here they say the fire is coming. What are we going to do?” Darlene asked. “I can’t afford to be homeless.”

Challenging fire behavior

Fire crews say the landscape and fuel types contribute to slow progress and operational challenges.

“Over the past few days, we’ve taken advantage of the weather to put resources in all along the fire perimeter and get a good grasp on the fire’s edge,” said Tyler Chesarek, the planning operations trainee with the Southwest Area Complex Incident Management Team 2. “In this particular fuel type, the fire doesn’t present a straight edge, so that increases the amount of time and area that the firefighters have to cover.”

Chesarek said progress has been made, particularly near Navajo Route 12, between Hunters Point and Oak Springs.

“We were able to put fire resources in on the north end, strengthen the containment lines, and repopulate the homes along the highway,” he said.

Drying conditions ahead

However, fire behavior is expected to shift as weather conditions change. Rich Thompson, an incident meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said recent moisture has passed and drier air is moving in.

“That shower and thunderstorm threat is over, and it’s going to be dry through the upcoming holiday weekend,” Thompson said. “Humidity is dropping into the 15 to 25% range, typical westerly winds, probably guessing anywhere about 15, maybe 25 miles per hour.”

That drying trend could affect fire behavior heading into the weekend.

“We’re starting to see this hot, drier spell coming in, those fine, dead fuels, the pine needles, the twigs, the leaves are going to dry out again,” said Stuart Turner, the fire behavior analyst. “You may see some more smoke, a single tree torch, or maybe a small column come out of some place on the fire. And not to be alarmed, I don’t think we’re going to see those big runs today.”

Still, Turner warned that shifting winds could increase activity.

“That westerly wind is going to push along this east side, and you may see a little bit more activity because of that dryness and that west wind,” he said.

Living packed and ready

For families like Darlene’s, that uncertainty means staying packed and ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

“It’ll be nice if we stay in a motel again, at least one more night or two more nights, make sure the fire is out,” she said. “Maybe from where I live, about three miles out, a lot of our pinon trees died, and those things can get on fire first.”

Darlene said that a growing number of dead trees were covering parts of the regional forest. Scientists attribute the widespread die-off of piñon-juniper woodlands to prolonged drought.

Changing landscape, struggling for shelter and food

Researchers from the University of New Mexico and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service found that extreme drought, worsened by bark beetle outbreaks over the past 30 years, has devastated mature piñon pine trees across Arizona and New Mexico. Drought-hardy juniper species are now beginning to dominate the landscape, signaling a shift in forest composition.

For now, Darlene is focused on immediate needs – shelter, health, and food. As donation drives begin to scale back, St. Michaels Chapter remains open, collecting donations and offering support to evacuees.

Darlene said the response at her local chapter has been inconsistent.

“They have a real thin mattress, maybe half an inch thick,” she said, describing a shelter setup at Klagetoh Chapter. “And they try to tell us to sleep on the floor. Like I said, I have two of them has asthma, they start coughing on dust or whatever.”

She recalled meals from their first days of displacement.

“Somebody donated blue mush, and they bought some burritos; they just cut them in half. That was our breakfast,” she said. “They just brought bologna and cheese. She only had one really skinny piece of bologna and ham between the bread.”

A school board member secured a temporary motel stay, but that assistance has ended.

Mobilizing support, emotional toll of the fire

Delegate Brenda Jesus, the chairwoman of the Resources and Development Committee, has been coordinating aid since the fire broke out on June 28. She helped secure a three-night hotel room for Darlene and her family.

“As a delegate, I’m doing my best to navigate how we can mobilize,” Jesus said, speaking from her vehicle as she delivered donated food to residents in Oak Springs.

She acknowledged that many chapters were unprepared for an event of this scale and said future emergency planning is critical.

“And I just think I’ve realized right now, through this whole event, that a lot of chapters aren’t ready for an emergency like this. And I think this is where we need to go back to the drawing table,” she said.

Jesus also described the emotional impact the fire had on her constituents.

“I have constituents that I personally visited, in tears, still shocked and traumatized from what they’ve experienced, what they’ve seen, what they’ve encountered with like a snow coming down from the fire close to the Tsé Nas Chii area, and also Oak Springs,” she said.

“And these people are still traumatized,” she added. “Who do they go to? So, I literally sit there with them and talk with them.”

She recounted families forced to evacuate with nowhere to go.

“You have families that literally moved their furniture out of their homes to a place where they just covered it up with a tarp at relatives and really had no place to go,” she said.

Call for dignity in disaster response, waiting for safety

Jesus said the crisis revealed shortcomings in emergency support, including her own.

“And that’s where, as a leader, that was my shortcoming,” she said. “And I just realized, I think, for the next event, I might as well coordinate with these hotels to see if they can take in that cost.”

She also emphasized the importance of providing displaced families with dignified care and support.

“At a time like this, I really think people need a safe place to go to that where they have privacy, where they won’t be neglected toiletry stuff or hygiene stuff, because that was one of the biggest things; and a proper hot meal, not just a processed turkey meat slapped together with a piece of bread to call it a meal,” she said. “No, I mean a hot meal is what people want.”

For Darlene and others who are still waiting for safety and stability, the fire is more than a threat to the landscape – it’s a daily disruption of life.

“It’ll be nice if our chapter house would really help,” she said again. “I can’t afford to be homeless.”

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