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Highway 87 reopens; Crews get upper hand on Willow

By Jim Keyworth, Roundup staff reporter

Friday, July 9, 2004

Richard Haddad/Roundup After an effort that has taken two weeks and more than $7 million, firefighters finally think they have the upper hand on the Willow Fire near Payson, Arizona.

Firefighters say they believe they finally have the upper hand on the Willow Fire.

Burnout operations on the southeast flank of the fire went extremely well Thursday, Incident Commander Jeff Whitney told the Payson Town Council last night. With the 345-kilovolt power lines decommissioned for part of the day, burnouts were completed from the south side of Highway 188 to just north of Sunflower.

Thursday's progress was good news to a smoke and ash-drenched community that watched nervously as the fire jumped containment lines and Highway 87 late Tuesday and Wednesday, prompting closure of the main artery between the Rim country and the Valley.

"We had an awful lot of activity around Mount Catherine (about six miles west of Deer Creek)," Whitney said Wednesday evening. "It came down Deer Creek, and pushed the highway pretty hard. We saw a number of fire whirls that were very akin to tornadic activity, and as a result it blew across the road on the north side and the south side of (Highway) 188."

Three spots where the fire jumped Highway 87 were significant in size, each in the range of 20 to 50 acres.

Mesa del Caballo resident Irene Scwartzbauer got a firsthand look Wednesday afternoon when she returned from jury duty in Globe. What the retired middle school librarian witnessed was a scene so surreal she says she gets goosebumps every time she thinks about it.

"I got to Tonto Basin and it was already pretty bad looking, and the closer I got the worse it looked," she said. "That cloud just spread over me. It was a dark, grayish brown with orangey red in it.

"I got up to the intersection (of highways 87 and 188) and they were busy, busy, busy. There were guys running here, there and everywhere, and as I turned onto 87 there were firemen lined up along the southbound side facing the fire about every 10 or 15 feet. I think they were watching to make sure that it didn't spot over. I watched and you could see the fire climbing the mountain just before it gets to the power lines, and it was going good."

Payson Roundup employee Shannon Marshall lives at Jake's Corner. After listening to updates on the fire, she left work early Wednesday -- about 1 p.m. She witnessed the same thing Schwartzbauer did.

"It was right at the power lines, and (husband) Brian could see it coming. He said, ‘Get the horses out,' and I took them to a friend's a few miles away.

"When I got back the police were up here and they said, ‘Just be ready.' It was probably about two miles away because we live three miles from the highway. They brought in dozers and water tankers and they were spraying water in the woods."

Marshall and her family slept in their home Wednesday night.

"I woke up about 12:30 and I smelled smoke and I went outside and looked," Marshall said. "The mountain was on fire. It was orange and black, and it was wild."

What Schwartzbauer and Marshall witnessed set the stage for Thursday's showdown between the Southwest Area Type 1 Incident Management Team and a fire that had kept them scrambling since it was first reported at 4:10 p.m., June 24.

"The fire just dealt us a hand we have to play out," Whitney said Thursday morning. "We're committed; we have to stay with that thing, so we're going to continue to burn through the day. It's a very critical point in time and this fire is in a very, very bad spot from a topography standpoint. It's going to be a real busy, busy day."

At stake were Mount Ord with its sophisticated electronic equipment and the power lines so critical to the Valley after the loss of a key substation.

When the smoke cleared at the end of the day, the fire had grown to 118,300 acres, but containment had jumped to 40 percent.

"We think we might be able to actually stop the fire where it is," Operations Section Chief Buck Wickham announced at the Thursday evening media briefing. "That's good news for everybody. Today was an intense deal, but it was the kind of day firefighters live for."