6/12-25/2001 Notes on Fire Scars Research, JRA Agencies: Maricopa County http://www.maricopa.gov/rec_svc/mcdowell/mcd_history.asp http://www.maricopa.gov/emerg_mgt/firegen.asp Emergency Management 602-273-1411 THey typically use Rural metro or local jurisdiction Record of fires over time? Not there. They referred me to the Fire management office of state land department 602-255-4052 (for reporting) fires outside of city limits coordinate with local jurisdictions and BLM and Forest Service McDowell Mtn Regional park; 6/14/2001 RIO fire. Don Harris is the Park supervisor. Jeff WHitney ws the incident commander. 14,404 acres burned in the park and a total of 23,000 burned. We looked through the "Rio fire folder" and were able to get copies of a few documents. We noted for example that there was $20k in restoration to ASU and it appears to have been to Matt Good and the snake people (548 3116). MHS--High School studies: Lorilla Z.. was the teacher. AIMES program. 461-5714 classroom and 898-5942 Science Dept. Reports on Soil Chemistry and Revegetation. Newspaper article in the Republic August 6, 1995. Contacts: Bob Skaggs (looks like he was paying attention to some of the interesting physical details of the fire) 602 506 4742 (office) Main County Parks office 602 506 2930 Don Harris at the Park: 480 471 0173 mcdowellmountainpark@mail.maricopa.gov Fire management office of state land department http://www.land.state.az.us/asld/htmls/fire.html Scott Hunt Phoenix District Forester Phx-Deer Valley 2901 W Pinnacle Peak Rd West of I17 get off at Deer Valley Phoenix, AZ 85027-1002 602-255-4059 6/8/2001 discussion with Scott Hunt: Same year as Rio fire: north of Rio Verde Road: Dynamite fire burned west to east Half dozen fires in the north McDowells area. Record keeping is not great, but there are the Legal Descriptions of the fires and sometimes there are the Fire Reports, but those are often in the archives or at records. Talking about relative ages of scars: summer of 1979 was very grassy. Around Florence and Apache Junction 35,000-100,000 acres burned. Also, there were fires around Brown's Ranch (northwest Scottsdale). And there were fires in the White Tanks area. I asked about the potential affect on flooding: Around Wenden (western Maricopa County) where the Centennial Wash flooded heavily in winter 2001, in the previous year there was a big fire in the Harcuvar in upper drainage basin. Around Phoenix, it seems reasonable. 6/12/2001 discussion with David Behrens (Fire Management Officer): Arizona State Land Department Fire Management Division 2901 W. Pinnalce Peak Road Phoenix, AZ 85027-1002 Office 602-255-4059 Fax 602-255-1781 Discussion of the North McDowells/northwest Scottsdale area Late 1990s, the northern fire near the Carefree airport burned. He noted that it appeared to start moving to the northeast, but in the evening, it was blown back to the southwest. Rio fire was started by a dry thunderstorm lightning strike in the northwest portion. An older fire scar that was there and visible in the 1993 radar was wiped out. Dynamite fire may be one in eastern part of study area with alternating roads and jagged north edge. Troon burn around the little hills there caused a conflict between landowners who wanted to save their "beautiful desert" and the firefighters who wanted to let it burn. Flag fire (Walter Scurei) is a pretty old one--this is the one for which we have balloon photos. Other fires 1979: Lots of burning. For example around Biscuit Flat. 1995 (wet winter): Desert Hills fire near current Anthem development (see photos). On inspection briefly on 6/12/2001, we don't see much, but wonder what developers think about these burnt areas. Generalities of these brush fires 1) Usually man caused (some arson, cigarettes). Some natural. 2) Lots of annuals, especially grass. A fire will move through, clear the veg and the replacement veg will be exotics (Cheatgrass/Junegrass) which regrow rapidly and can reburn. One person named Gary ________ (professor?) studied an area near Biscuit Flat (near the Pioneer VIllage) that was burnt 4 times in 10 years. Wet Winters followed by lots of growth are big fire years. Firefighting issues: 1) The fire can often go out at night, especially if then dew point is >30. 2) They try to use roads or other natural boundaries. They typically use hand crews or stick an engine on it. They try not to use heavy equipment. A "Cat Line" will last forever out there. They can often use a small plane or helicopter for supression. 3) These areas are low fuel and "offer low to medium resistance to control." 4) The fuels are really igniteable. 5) Not too much prescribed burning around here 6) Fires natural in most ecosystems 7) Conflict between ari quality and smoke 8) Too much build up of fuel for safe prescribed burning 9) Persistence of fuels in a dry climate Records They have "legal descriptions" for the fires that are fought and some that are spotted. These apparently can be searched by lat long and the descriptions reviewed. They have "Fire occurance data" that he will try to share with us. We gave him a few images, offered some collaborative possibilities and requested as many fire reports for the northwest Scottsdale area as possible as well as the fire occurence database. He said that they were busy but he thought they could get something to us in the next week or so. Cooperation with other agencies Arizona does not really do its own firefighting, but contracts with other agencies such as BLM, BIA, NPS, USFS, cities, and Rural-Metro and others for firefighting services. Much is contracted to these groups. The place we met is the main dispatch facility for the state. Recommended contacts Tim Bos at USFS (see below) Mike Fisher at BLM (see below) Pam McAlpin at BLM (Fire use specialist) 602-417-9336 Regional office at USFS Gary Irish at AZ State Lands: LANDSTATS Cliff PerlBerg: AZ State Lands at that fire management facility: LANDSTATS/arcview Forest Service Tonto area http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/tonto/ http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/tonto/districts/so/so.htm 24th and McDowell West of 24th Near Wendys and a Mexican food place (4th building from west) 6022255351 call dispatch (9 am Saturday morning, June 23, 2001) 2324 East McDowell Road Phoenix, Arizona 85545 Phone: (602) 225-5200 Records of firefighting? Don Vandrell (602 225 5240) Fire staff officer Tim Bos (602 225 5350) Fire management officer Called (6/8/2001) and left message (6/12/2001). Phone tag 6/17-18/2001 It is possible we might get a Fire Occurance database from them. They have records for Tonto Forest (>1960). Fire occurance maps Rio Verde Drive North side same as Rio Fire Troon Fire Meeting June 23, 2001 These fires are important because of the high value of the lands that are burnt from a scenic standpoint (beauty of the desert). For example, the Troon fire (July 1995) decreased some lot values by $20k. The wildland/urban interface is a location of high scenic value and also there is the life and property there. The risk of ignition can be high. The hazard of burning is seasonally dependent on the annual fuel loads. (Hazard = fuel; risk = ignition sources which goes up with the number of peopel). He does not really agree with the other comments about "low resistance to control." If the year produces a light amount of annual fule, they are easy, but years such as 1995 (Rio and Troon fire years), the fires were very hard to control. Dynamite fire was ~10 days before the Rio fire. Other urban interface fires occured down in the Apache Junction/GOld Caynon area (Geronimo fire). One group in particular, starting with a big one in 1969 wiped out the Saguaros and with allof the grass that comes in, the cows take over and they don't allow the nurse plants to keep the baby Saguaros going. He said that the area ("the Flatirons" near AJ) used to have so many Saguaros that it looked like Saguaro National Monument. Some fires northeast of the Carefree airport. Lots of fires in teh lower Slat River Canyon. "Water attracts fires"--I guess because of all of the recreating that goes on in places like the lower Salt River Valley. We should look a bit at the fire science curricula that students are taking and see what is taught about these kinds of fires. We spent about an hour and looked through their fire occurence database for the southwestern edge of the Tonto National forest (Cavecreek and Mesa Ranger Districts) and noted about 50ish decent (>100 acre fires from later than 1962) and he was going to pull the fire reports and mail them to me. I have a couple of samples. They don't have polygons for them, but they do have acreage and the locations. We thought that the older ones especially would be useful for the recovery database. BLM Mike Fisher--BLM State Office Downtown Phoenix; 602-417-9307; 6/12/2001 phone call My intro to our project Georeferenced data? bring into TIFF format 1980-present: point data from BLM fires and some other agency data (later years are better) Arcview and overlay: can pull up fire reports 1988-present his own experience is best 2 pm meeting tomorrow Wednesday, June 13. 222 N. Central Avenue sw corner of central and Van Buren (security Building) Call him a few minutes early for the employee parking lot: NE corner of central and Van Buren North on Central save onto Polk Larger fires are in Kingman area and AZ strip and some in the I17 Corridor Fires on BLM land: Capture some data from other groups He is a Fire management specialist: mostly suppression and a bit of restoration and rehab Meeting with Fisher on 6/13/2001 Talked about ownership: lands around Phoenix have more complicated ownership; they really only deal with the BLM land, so most of our northwest Scottsdale area project is under Tonto NF. They have a fire occurance database in ArcView; which they sent to us on 6/21/2001: in it are both point locations for small fires and polygons for the bigger fires. The outlines are usually mapped from 1:24k topo maps. Now they are GPS'd in. Note that there were some decent fires in the San Tans in the early 90s (1992 and 1993). Fire reports tend to have the initial attack date and the equipment used, but not much more than that. Urban interface is a major issue for them. Their urban strategy is to identify reisk areas which are a function of the housing density, slope, aspect, etc. They are interested in a landcover classification and that is where a future meeting with them and Stefanov would be good. Federal agencies have a major emphasis on the urban interface and remote sensing is a major asset. We could do some horsetrading data-wise. They have started to to onsite GIS for fire support. As far as active fires go ("going fire"), we should keep in touch with Dave Behrens and also visit the Dispatch office on Deer Valley (I17N and east on Deer Valley): 21605 N 7th Ave. Contact Glenn Jokie FMO 623 580 5513 or Helen Graham AFMO 623 580 5635 With respect to these kinds of fires that have a "low resistance to control," he says that it is easy to build a fire line, they don't burn hot or long, and generally defensible for houses ("big green lawn"). The Sonoran and Mojave desert is not a fire dependant ecosystem. However, the exotic plants that have been introduced are often fire dependent and are causing the desert to burn (red brome/cheat grass love it). "Type Conversion." If it is a little wetter, it is good for grass (slightly higher elevations), and these are devastating for habitat. With respect to flooding, the San Tans not much; maybe harquahalaos/Harcuvar fire where there was chapparal and brush that was burned and apparently a fair amount of erosion. He mentioned some ideas about funding for next year, and we should get the information on Science Grants and probably talk to D.r Bob Clark in Boise ID at the Joint Fire Science Program (208 387 5349). Other Random notes We need to bring a plant book to help with ID in the field Sediment traps http://www.act.gov.au/storm/gpt.htm GPS total station Surveyors Service Co 4317 N 16th St Phoenix, AZ 85016 602-274-2052 $385 daily and $1904 week and $6480k/month Nick Cornouie Mobile Number 480 225 4090 http://www.leica-geosystems.com/: system 500 or 300 PCCard technology Meet at 5 pm Thursday for a Friday rental Just north of Indian School on east side