Arizona Wildfires

[brainanator]

yikes! Up here in montana we're basically under water. Already gotten way more rain than we usually do the entire year...

Both are natural parts of the environment though, forests have to burn every once in a while, many tree reproductive cycles depend on it.

[Krawlin]

This has been the "perfect storm" for fires down here it seems as a few months ago we had a hard freeze that killed alot of vegetation and with the lack of rain most of it has stayed dead and dry. What is unfortunate in people trying to prevent forest fires and building in and near forest areas is that fires are supposed to happen now and then to thin the forest to prevent massive fires but people try to prevent that and it just grows more and more fuel for a fire and when it goes it's worse than regular naturally occurring fires and we end up with very violent and destructive wild fires. And I've read that since January until now, this area of Arizona (Tucson/Pima County and Sierra Vista/Cochise County) has only gotten 1/2'' of rain, compared the about 3'' that is normal for that period of time around here.

The Monument Fire just south of my town has grown and burned one of the 8900~9000 foot high peaks here (valley floor is around 4300 feet above sea level). The peak that is burning now is Miller Peak and Miller Canyon, the south peak of the Huachuca Mountains.

I am not a religious man by any means, but these are some pretty sad pictures to see. This place is known as "The Lady Of The Mountain" and is a small church, unfortunately burned the church and surrounding homes but the cross and the "lady" made it through -

(Pictures not taken by me, some are from the Monument Fire facebook page)

Before it burned with flames getting close


And the unfortunate site after -




And some other pics of the planes dropping slurry -









Area near church pics above burning, the black smoke is from structures burning -

[Krawlin]

Miller Peak burning, around 7300 feet and up to the peak of around 8900~9000 feet. Note that there is also even more going on to the south of this peak (behind what you see in the pics) -





Moving further down into the canyon towards homes -