>From: Brian Casteel <>
>Reply-To: listserv@azgeocaching.com
>To: listserv@azgeocaching.com
>Subject: Re: [Az-Geocaching] Hmmm...
>Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 11:41:59 -0600
>
>Figures you'd head out of town and up to Sedona, and a wildfire breaks
>out...IN Sedona.  ;p

The La Barranca fire, as it is being called, is now pretty much fully 
contained. I havent seen any smoke now in 2 days. The first day, I saw the 
smoke. Thought it was a house fire or something. I walked into a Circle K 
for a drink and 5 minutes later walked out of the store and there was a huge 
black column of smoke rising up. That thing went up fast! It got worse very 
quickly. Within a very short time frame (maybe an hour at most) it went from 
a few acres to 150 acres. In just that time, it had consumed 2 very 
expensive homes and properties as well as a guest house. The fire was buring 
in Jacks Canyon, which is just a couple miles north of the Village of Oak 
Creek. Fortunately, the fire worked its way up the canyon toward the north 
and away from town... or that might have been very ugly. They kept the fire 
within the canyon and got it contained rather quickly. I think it burned 
about 900 acres. I can see small areas of white smoke. But it is pretty much 
just smoldering out now. The fire was human caused and is believed to be 
caused by workers from a fence company that were grinding on a metal post 
causing sparks to ignite nearby dry fuel. It is amazing that that is all it 
took to destroy two families homes and 900 acres of national forest and 
wilderness area.

The fire started buring in between two subdivisions of high dollar homes and 
then moved up into Jacks Canyon, where the fire stayed within. There are 
still crews out there working on it today... 4 days laters. But I didnt see 
much of any smoke even on the second day. They knocked it out very quickly.

The forest is just WAY dry right now. It only takes an idiot to throw a 
cigerette out the window of their car (or an idiot griding on a fence post 
as it was) and thousands of acres of forest and many homes can be devastated 
in a very short time frame. Another good reason to ban cigerettes and 
smoking in Arizona, IMHO! The sooner the monsoon season gets here, the 
better. We will need the rain. It amazes me how stupid and how oblivious 
some people are to the severity of this.

Scott
Team RTW