The virtual community meeting video from the evening of June 23, 2020 is posted to Facebook. The direct is https://www.facebook.com/bushfireinfo/videos/941682202946426/ This is the transcript below:

June 23, 2020

Bush Fire & Central Fire Virtual Community Meeting

 

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Good evening.  Thank you for joining us tonight.  My name is Michelle Fidler, I'm a Public Information Officer with the Southwest Area Incident Management Team.  Tonight we'll be covering updates on the Central and the Bush Fires, we also have representatives from the forest here and our Incident Commander to give us a few updates on the fire.  We are monitoring your questions online here on Facebook, we also invite you to send us an e‑mail, you can reach us at 2020.bush@firenet.gov.  We've been looking at your questions throughout the day and we'll do our best to try to address those here this evening. 

Once again, I will just emphasize that Inciweb is our best source of information, that's Inciweb.nwcg.gov and that's where we post all of our fire information updates as well as links to our cooperator information including information about current road closures, what's hope, the recreation access, current evacuation status, 'Ready, Set, Go' information, all of the related information to our fires here.

With that, I will go ahead and introduce our representative our Agency Administrator for this particular incident, so Eric Stemmerman will give us our first update here tonight.

>> ERIC STEMMERMAN:  Good evening.  Eric Stemmerman, Agency Administrator for the incident.  I just wanted to point out that at this phase, what we're really moving into is transitioning, trying to provide access, provide safety for everyone and also coordinating our efforts as we repair.  When you're out and about, we still do have firefighters out there, so for your safety and for theirs, just be aware, and if you do have questions, this is a great opportunity.  We have people here tonight that can help answer those.  And if you have other ones, you can put them forward and we'll answer them later.  Thank you.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thanks, Eric.  Our next speaker here is Ralph Lucas, he's one of our operations folks with the incident management team to give us an update on both the Bush and the Central Fires.

>> RALPH LUCAS:  Thank you, Michelle.  Good evening, everyone, thanks for being here and it's great to be back with you to give you information about the two fires that we're under command of.  We'll start with the Bush Fire.  Everything is going real well on the Bush Fire.  Today, up here on the west side of the fire, we were able to open the 87 road, that was significant.  We do understand that personal travel and public travel as well as commercial travel is pivotal along that corridor between Payson and Scottsdale.  So that is open.  The southbound lane is fully open.  Northbound lane is down to one lane. 

We ask that you respect the speed limits and pay attention while you're driving.  I know it can be a distraction when you're looking up at the fire and seeing what's going on and things like that, but we do have firefighters along the roadways, so your detail and attention to that matter would be much appreciated.

Yeah, this looks really good.  We did have a little bit of heat up here on the north end of the fire right as I was leaving to come down to this community meeting, we're putting some helicopters with some water buckets on it and we'll go ahead and extinguish that.  We also ran a couple emissions up to Mount Ord today.  That is a critical piece of infrastructure up there as it relates to communications and public safety infrastructure, and Mount Ord is doing fine.  They were able to service and do maintenance as requested.

Coming down the east corridor, we've got the Jake's Corner, the Pioneer Pass, Brownsville, Tonto Basin area, all of that is looking real good.  We're still monitoring that.  We did have a little bit of activity poking up in this little area here and I'll explain these green pockets in a moment.  But nothing that would be of any danger or concern to the public.

Along the southern perimeter of the fire, the fire continues to gently just back down against the wind, as it kind of creeps through some of the rocks and stuff, and that's of no concern as well.  One thing I want to mention to you that in the future, this is a large green what we would call island.  Everything in red is what has caught on fire and is now just smoldering.  But everything in green is still green vegetation that can be consumed.  It's not a concern from a public safety standpoint.  It's more of a concern that we want to let you know that you will see glow, you will see smoke, and you may see flames up on the mountain for the next several days to come.  But it is no concern as far as public safety.

This is about a 10,000 acre chunk and there's various little chunks around the fire that are continuing to do the same.  Moving over to our little friend over here off to the West, that is the Central Fire, it is looking really good.  Crews were in there this morning.  We had to helicopter crews in, that's how remote it is and one of our crews actually had to spend the night up on the mountain and be supported by helicopter.  So they found a little bit of heat in some ‑‑ I can switch.  Thank you.  So you can see me.  I apologize. 

So crews were able to get in here, and they did find some heat that was backing down some ridgelines, and so what they did is they called in helicopters as well and helicopters assisted them in kind of cleaning that up.  And this fire is doing good, like I said.  I'll give you some statistics.  The Bush Fire is currently at 186,967 acres.  We have seven ‑‑ no, I apologize, 522 people and it is 73 percent contained.  On the Central Fire, 4,499 acres, we have 36 percent containment and 104 people on that incident.

Later in the day, some of you have already been asking, there was a new start on the other side of the highway, on the western side of the 17 there, and we are allocating some resources to that incident as we speak.  We do not own that fire, our Type 1 Incident Management Team is only in charge of the Bush Fire and the Central Fire at this time.  So I just wanted to make that real clear.  That's on State lands.  But we did assist them in sending over some resources, which is the beauty of having a Type 1 team in the area because our ability to allocate resources as needed is significant, and that's what we've been doing and that's why you see why we took on the Central Fire as well.  Thank you.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thanks for that update, Ralph.  Next I would like to introduce Matt Lane, he's here from the Tonto National Forest.

>> MATT LANE:  Good evening, everyone.  My name is Matthew Lane, and I'm the Mesa District Ranger of the Tonto National Forest.  I'm here today to talk to you about some of the updates and some of the closures and some of the openings that we've had on the district.  So looking at the map, as Ralph said, the 87 road is open all the way through.  The 188 road is also open.  The State Route 88 or the Apache Trail also opened today, so Saguaro Lake has been opened, it actually opened last Saturday, and Canyon Lake never closed, so it has been opened. 

There are a few sites here along the Bush Highway that still need to stay closed until we can assess the public safety risk, and those sites will be Butcher Jones Beach and Pobrecito, we'll be looking at those.  And when the B.A.E.R. Team comes back and gives some of their modeling, we'll be able to make decisions on how long they'll be closed and when they'll be opened.  Then we have the remainder of the burn area. 

So now right now this entire triangle area, the interior, is closed.  And we don't know when that's going to be open again.  Again, we need to check with the B.A.E.R. Team and see what their modeling says.  Really what we want is to ensure that anybody who goes in here is safe and it is going to be closed until we can assure that that public safety is foremost and is going to be preserved.  Thanks.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thanks for that.  Next I would like to introduce our Incident Commander, Alan Sinclair, to gives some perspective on kind of where we're at with the fire.  Actually, you know what, we're going to try to bring in our resource, our B.A.E.R. Team lead.  He's working with us remotely, so we've got him on Zoom.  So we'll bring him in and we're going to try to get the audio.  If there's any issues with it, we'll have an update here as well.  All right.

>> Go ahead, mark.

>> Mark:  Real quick mic check, can you hear me okay?

>> Go ahead.

>> Mark:  Okay.  Can you hear me now?

>> Yes.  Go ahead.

>> Andy:  Okay.  Thank you very much for a few minutes to talk to everybody this evening, my name is Andy (?) I'm currently serving as the Burn Area Emergency Response Team lead for the burn area here on the Tonto National Forest.  Matt alluded to what we'll be doing here in the future, we'll be doing an emergency assessment of the landscape that was burned by the fire, looking at multiple things, but primarily this time around we'll be looking at risk to human life and safety, property, other critical natural resources and cultural heritage sites.

So this will be a combination of remote sensing, models, and working with our collaborators to take a look at what kind of precip, and we can be expecting to land on the burn scar, looking at what type of sediment delivery we can expect coming off of the burned area and what kind of increased water flow we could be coming off of there, predict coming off the area.

So then we will then be communicating this information not only to the forest, for concerns of public safety as they're recreating and visiting our forests, but also to our cooperators and private landowners, counties and the state to give an idea of what kind of risk there may be to these downstream resources.

As we're moving forward, we will get additional information out there for what can be done to help other resources to assist in these, mitigate these risks and get you into contact with the correct people to get this type of work done.  With that, thank you.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thank you.  We appreciate the update here tonight.  With that, I'm going to go back and introduce our Incident Commander, Alan Sinclair.

>> ALAN SINCLAIR:  Good evening.  I'm Alan Sinclair with Southwest Area Team Number 1.  So things are winding down.  We have roads back open, but we do have crews out there working as Ralph alluded to.  So please, keep their safety in mind when you're traveling on 188 or 87.  When you're looking at the burn scar, it's going to be easy to get sucked into checking that out and not paying attention to driving.

So please ensure that you're paying attention on driving.

Slow and low will be the tempo.  And you need to keep that firefighter safety as your number one priority.

With the two fires, there is a lot of the black line now showing, a lot of containment.  There was a lot of work done before we got here, and we were able to pick it up where they had left off and make good progress of getting these things into a situation where there's not a concern that they're going to be moving out of their current footprint.  So a lot of good work that has been done, and I really appreciate it.  I appreciate your patience.  This is our fifth day on the fire, and it seems like we've been here a lot longer.  And I'm sure that if you were patiently waiting for roads to get open and to get back into your homes, it probably seemed like a lot longer than that for you.

As Ralph said, we were getting questions about the new fire.  We're sending some resources to assist them.  It's a State fire under Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management.  And they are part of the two fires here.  They're agency administrators that we work with in the management of these two fires.  So pretty easy to help them out.  We work really well with them.

With that, I'll turn over to Michelle.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thanks for that, Alan.  So we've been checking questions and we did have one question here about hunting.  So we have Jeff Sterla, one of our resource advisors to give an update in response to that question.  

(Pause).

>> So the question is, I spend a lot of time hunting around Sunflower and Bushnell Tanks, I'm curious to know how the Sycamore trees did during the burn along forest road 22 heading east, they say that creek has a very unique ecosystem which provided a great deal of habitat for quail and coues deer.

>> I have spent some time up there during the duration of the incident, and I can tell you that for the most part, that area of the fire had far less severity than some of the other areas.  The Sycamore drainage is a riparian area, and the vegetation in there is a lot higher in moisture and didn't burn like the uplands did.  On the hills above it, it remains largely unburned and it fared the best compared to some of the other portions in the area.

So I would say that as far as the quail hatch goes for next year, that really depends on the spring rains.  One other thing to mention is that a lot of the Arizona Game & Fish game wardens have been working this incident and these are their districts, so these are excellent resources to reach out to later for more specifics.  Thanks.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thanks for that update, Jeff.  So with that, I think we have covered, I believe, most of the questions here in our Q & A tonight.  It we did not get to your specific question, again, please feel free to gives a call or send us an e‑mail or message us here on Facebook.  We continue to have public information officers available to answer your questions.  At this point, we don't have any additional community meetings planned, but we will continue to update all of our fire information here on Inciweb as well as our incident‑specific Facebook you're joining us here tonight. 

With that, we want to thank you for joining us, we hope you have a good night, and we hope you reach out if you have any questions we can help you with.  Take care.

(The community meeting concluded at 6:18pm)

 

* * * This text, document, or file is based on live transcription.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), captioning, and/or live transcription are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.  This text, document, or file is not to be distributed or used in any way that may violate copyright law. * * *

 

 

Bush Fire - June 23, 2020 Morning Update

Acres: 186,848 acres                                                                                      Percent Containment: 61%

Start Date: Saturday, June 13, 2020                                                          Cause: Human-caused

Origin Location: 22 miles NE of Mesa, AZ                                              Fuels: Tall grass and brush

Resources: 587 total including 3 Type 1 Crews; 6 Type 2 Crews; 30 Engines; 3 bulldozers; 4 water tenders; 8 helicopters

 

Exercise Caution Driving As Firefighters Continue Work Along Highways

The Bush Fire is currently 61% contained. Firefighters have continued efforts to secure firefines to protect property. Limited fire activity is being observed. Firefighters continue to suppress hotspots within the fire’s perimeter as needed. Fire suppression repair work also continues.    

Small pockets of fuel within the fire’s perimeter will continue to burn and create columns of smoke. Expect to also see dust devils of ash that are commonly mistaken for smoke within the fire’s interior.

There will be an online community meeting tonight on the Bush and Central Fires at 6 pm on  Fb.com/bushfireinfo. An American Sign Language interpreter and captioning will be provided. A recording will be posted following the meeting. No account is required to view the video. If a pop-up box appears when you first navigate to the link, you can use the scroll bar on the right to scroll down to the view and/or click “not now” to minimize the login pop-up. We will monitor online Facebook questions during the meeting or you can e-mail us your questions at 2020.bush@firenet.gov.     

Evacuation info: Visit Maricopa County https://ready.maricopa.gov/ and Gila County: www.readygila.com/ for more information.

Smoke Outlook: https://fires.airfire.org/outlooks/CentralArizona

Visit https://az511.com/ or call 511 for current road closure information.      

For your safety and ours, please drive with caution. Firefighters continue to work along Highway 87 and 188.  Drivers should expect fire personnel and cooperators to be working on highway shoulders and should use extreme caution. Slow down and watch for firefighters working along the highways. Please not stop along the road in the fire area.

The Tonto National Forest has an area closure surrounding the Bush Fire. Fire restrictions remain in place. Details are available at https://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/tonto/alerts-notices.      

Wildfires are a No Drone Zone. If you fly, we can’t. Every time a drone is spotted near the fire all aircraft are grounded until we can be sure the drone is clear of this area. More info visit http://knowbeforeyoufly.org.

Fire Information: 928-351-7596 (public)                                                 928-351-7723 (media)

Inciweb: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6773/                           Facebook: Fb.com/bushfireinfo Email: 2020.bush@firenet.gov                          Twitter: twitter.com/TontoForest

Bush Fire Perimeter Map: https://tinyurl.com/Bush-Fire-Map

Bush Fire Progression Map: https://bit.ly/BushFireTimeProgressionMap

Smoke Outlook for 6/23 - 6/24
Central Arizona - Bush Fire
Issued at: 2020-06-23 08:54 MDT

Special Statement
Multiple fires are putting up smoke across Arizona with much of the state smelling smoke and numerous locations seeing occasional smoke impacts.

Fire Information
The Bush Fire is estimated at 186,086 ac with no new perimeter growth as of Tuesday morning, and is now 61 percent contained. Successful suppression tactics and favorable weather has led to substantially less fire and smoke. The Central fire is burning just East of I-17 at New River. This fire is estimated at 4,499 ac with 543 ac of growth and is 23 percent contained. The fire has moved to the top of New River Mesa and has considerably slowed movement to the northeast, away from structures.

Smoke Discussion
Today will be a repeat of yesterdays weather with decreased winds and potential of settling smoke over rim country. Impacts should continue to improve as the fire consumes interior fuel. Brief smoke impacts may be expected through the day in the Tonto Basin, however, at a lower intensity and duration from days past. Smoke will creep from Tonto Basin Northeast to Payson, spreading East and west along Rim Country with potential impacts to Heber-Overgarrd, Show Low, Fort Apache Reservation along with the I-17 corridor north of Phoenix. The compounding of smoke from the two fires, as well as additional smoke from fire south near Tucson, may bring light impacts into areas of metro Phoenix.

Extended Outlook
A pattern of high pressure and lighter South to Southwest wind will continue into the week that may again allow smoke to linger in the areas mentioned above

Bush Fire - June 22, 2020 Morning Update

Acres: 186,086 acres (based on infrared flight) Percent Containment: 42%

Start Date: Saturday, June 13, 2020 Cause: Human-caused

Origin Location: 22 miles NE of Mesa, AZ Fuels: Tall grass and brush

Resources: 704 total including 9 Type 1 Crews; 6 Type 2 Crews; 38 Engines; 3 bulldozers; 18 water tenders; 8 helicopters

Firefighters Making Progress with Containment Efforts on the Bush Fire

The Bush Fire is currently 42% contained. Interactive Bush Fire perimeter map: https://tinyurl.com/Bush-Fire-Map

The northwest portion of the fire remains the most active. Firefighters are continuing to work along the SR87, strengthening fireline to secure the area. They are also continuing efforts to help protect the Sunflower area.

Expect to continue to see smoke in the large pocket of unburned fuel within the fire’s perimeter on the east side of the fire near Highway 188. The south end of the fire remains in monitor status. Smoldering along the lake will continue as isolated pockets of previously unburned vegetation.

A recording of last night’s online community meeting tonight on the Bush and Central Fires is available at https://tinyurl.com/June21video. Additional video updates are available at https://tinyurl.com/BushFireVideoUpdates.

Hot, dry weather, similar to yesterday is expected again today.

Firefighters continue to use sing a range of tactics to fully suppress the fire. They are working to protect values at risk including nearby communities, state highways, communication sites and power lines.

Sunflower and residents and visitors to Apache Lake remain under "Go" evacuation notice. The communities of Tonto Basin, Punkin Center, Pioneer Pass, Brownsville, Slate Creek, and Jake’s Creek have returned to "Set" mode. Gisela, Rye, Deer Creek, 76 Ranch and Bar T Bar Ranch (BT Ranch) remain in "Set" status. Evacuation and shelter info map: https://tinyurl.com/bushfirepublicinfo. Visit Maricopa County https://ready.maricopa.gov/ and Gila County: www.readygila.com/ for more information.

Smoke Outlook: https://fires.airfire.org/outlooks/CentralArizona

Visit https://az511.com/ or call 511 for current road closure information. State Route 87 is closed from Payson (milepost 251) to Bush Highway (milepost 199). State Route 188 is closed between SR 87 (milepost 276) and Roosevelt Lake at milepost 243. In addition, State Route 88 is closed between Apache Lake (milepost 229) to State Route 188 (milepost 242). The long-term SR 88 closure from east of Tortilla Flat to Apache Lake also remains in effect.

The Tonto National Forest has an area closure surrounding the Bush Fire. Fire restrictions remain in place. Details are available at https://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/tonto/alerts-notices.

Wildfires are a No Drone Zone. If you fly, we can’t. Every time a drone is spotted near the fire all aircraft are grounded until we can be sure the drone is clear of this area. More info visit http://knowbeforeyoufly.org.

Fire Information: 928-351-7596 (public) 928-351-7723 (media)

Inciweb: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6773/ Facebook: Fb.com/bushfireinfo Email: 2020.bush@firenet.gov Twitter: twitter.com/TontoForest

Special Statement
Multiple fires are burning across Arizona with numerous locations seeing occasional smoke impacts.

Fire Information
The Bush Fire is estimated at 186,086 acres with 1,573 acres of growth as of Monday morning, and is now 45 percent contained. Fire activity has substantially decreased with successful suppression tactics and favorable weather. A new fire is burning just East of I-17 at New River named the Central Fire. This fire is estimated at 3,956 ac and has moved to the top of New River Mesa and continues to move to the northeast, away from structures.

Smoke Discussion
Today will be a repeat of yesterdays weather with decreased winds and settling of smoke over rim country. Impacts should continue to improve as the fire is contained. However, unburned fuels within the perimeter continue to burn making fire and smoke possible. Brief smoke impacts may be expected through the day, however, at a lower intensity and duration from days past. Smoke will be moving predominantly from Tonto Basin North to Payson, spread East and west along Rim Country with potential impacts to Heber-Overgarrd, Show Low, Fort Apache Reservation along with the I-17 corridor north of Phoenix. The compounding of smoke from the two fires may bring moderate smoke impacts into the North and East areas of metro Phoenix.

Extended Outlook
A pattern of high pressure and lighter South to Southwest wind will continue into the week that may again allow smoke to linger in the areas mentioned above

The virtual community meeting video from the evening of June 21, 2020 is posted to Facebook. The direct is https://www.facebook.com/bushfireinfo/videos/3303072126473508/ This is the transcript below:


June 21, 2020

6:00pm

Virtual Joint Community Meeting ‑ Bush Fire and Central Fire

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Good evening.  Thank you for joining us here tonight.  My name is Michelle Fidler, I'm a Public Information Officer with the Southwest Area Incident Management Team.  Tonight we'll be providing you with an update on both the Bush and the Central Fires.  I would like to encourage folks to visit our fire information websites on Inciweb, that's inciweb.nwcg.gov.  Each of those websites we try to provide consolidated information it as well as links to all our cooperators, information on the current road status, current evacuation status, Red Cross shelters, things to that effect.  This evening we'll cover first an update on the Bush Fire and then move to an update on the Central Fire, and we'll have our Incident Commander wrap things up.  We'll be monitoring your questions online.  You can also send your questions to our e‑mail, and both of those are available on our website.  For more information.

So with that, I think we will go ahead and get started here this evening.  I will first kick it off to Tom Torres, the Deputy Forest Supervisor here on the Tonto National Forest.

>> TOM TORRES:  All right.  Good evening, everybody.  I am Tom Torres, Deputy Forest Supervisor on the Tonto and I'm the Agency Administrator representing the Forest Service for both the Bush Fire and the Central Fire.  So since the last meeting, we've had a new incident, that's the Central Fire.  One of the things we've done to manage that fire is we've asked the Type 1 team that was managing the Bush Fire to also take over responsibility for managing the Central Fire. 

Primarily the reason behind that is because they had the capacity, they had the organization for us to quickly jump on that Central Fire, and treat it like we're treating the Bush Fire.  I want to stress the strategy behind both of those incidents is full suppression.  We want to put those fires out as quickly as we can while maintaining safety of the firefighters, safety of the public, and not doing too much damage to the natural and heritage resources that are out there.  So I just want to stress that.

We've made lots of progress on both incidents.  You will hear about that after I stop talking, and I want to, I think some of that progress is evident by the fact that there's a whole lot less smoke in the air than there was in previous days.

So I want to thank you for your patience.  I know some of you have been displaced from your homes, and you've been inconvenienced by road closures and things like that.  And I want to say thank you for your patience and thank you for understanding that our firefighters need the space to effectively and safely do their work.  Hopefully we can get you all back to a sense of normal and open the roads and stuff like that as quickly as we can.

So I just want to talk a little bit now about the next steps for us.  As the Tonto National Forest, we have the responsibility for making day‑to‑day decisions on the management of the lands that are affected.  And we're already turning our attention to some of those post‑fire effects that will likely happen when we start receiving monsoon rain events.  It will be discussed a little bit further by others in this presentation, but I just want you to know from the top levels of the forest here on the Tonto, we are committed to doing everything we can to work with our partners, including the counties and the State to provide resources to help alleviate some of those post‑fire effects.

So with that, I'm going to turn it back to ‑‑ I'll turn it over to Ralph, and he will give us an update on the fire itself.  So thank you.

>> RALPH LUCAS:  All right, Tom, thank you.  My name is Ralph Lucas, I'm with the Operations Section of Alan Sinclair's type is 1 team.  We have a lot of jargon that's difficult to understand so I want to explain it as simply as possible so you understand.  The operations section, Alan's team is the section that has all the firefighters that are on the ground, all of the fire trucks that are the on ground, and as well as the air resources, meaning the helicopters and air tankers and things like that.

So that's what an Operations Section does.  We're going to start with the Bush Fire and then we'll leave and I'll come back to the Central Fire.  The Bush Fire is currently at 184,674 acres.  It is 42 percent contained.  And it has 704 people on it.  This is what the Bush Fire looks like on a map.  When we break up our personnel on the map, we break them into divisions, which are just segments of the fire along its perimeter.  So we have certain divisions that come around the fire, and each one of those division personnel report to one person that's in charge of that segment.

We go around that alphanumerically, I'll explain that to you as we go.  This is what we call Division Alpha.  It is on the 87 road.  So the 87 road, the Bush Highway, heading up towards Payson.  As you can see, we have what's called black line here, that means the fire is very secure and stopped on the road system going up the Bush Highway, from this point down here near the communities and all the way up.  So that's a really good thing.  We have stopped this western progress of the fire.

As we move up into the next division, we call that Delta, then we also have Gulf up here.  In Division Delta, that's what has been problematic over the last few days.  Unfortunately, we found ourselves being pushed by the fire.  And if the fire kind of creeps down towards the Bush Highway, with the winds coming out of the Southwest, it makes the fire want to move up to the north and east, and we risk the chance of the fire going over the 87 route and coming up into this country.

I'm pleased to tell you that we have successfully burned out using aerial resources and ground resources and we have a line all the way up there.  I wouldn't call it a black line yet.  In the next couple days it will be a black line, meaning that we have contained the whole western side of the fire.

Moving around into the area of Jake's Corner, Pioneer and Tonto Basin, that's on the 188 road, this is very secure.  As you can tell, it's all in black.  As a matter of fact, we opened this up this morning to homeowners and business owners.  We choreographed that so you could come in from the north, from Payson, and the southeast from Globe.  A lot of people came in, we also had the local sheriff sitting at the IGA store to answer any questions along with a number of our own personnel, and that went successful. 

I want to reiterate that folks that are back into their residences and stuff like that might see smoke and glowing embers up in the fire.  But trust me, we wouldn't reintroduce homeowners if we felt there was any risk.  You're just going to see some stuff, some smoke and some little flames up on the mountain, but they're no threat to the community.

On the south end of the fire, we call this Sierra, Victor, and Zulu divisions.  This fire is just creeping down through really light fuels, towards the river, Apache Lake and Roosevelt.  It's very secure, we have no issues with that, we're actually letting it do that, we've checked it up in a few places with aerial resources, meaning we stopped the fire with water drops from helicopters so that we maintain a viewshed as you look up from the lakes and river system.

So that's what we have going on on the Bush Fire and I'll be back shortly to talk to you about the Central Fire.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thanks, Ralph.  Up next we have Matt Lane to talk to us here from the local Cave Creek Ranger District ‑‑ Mesa Ranger District.  I apologize, I got them mixed up.

>> MATT LANE:  Thank you, Michelle.  My name is Matt Lane, I am the District Ranger of the mess say Ranger District up at Tonto National Forest, I would like to say thank you again to the Type 1 team and for the firefighters and everything that they're doing to help us contain these fires.

So with the Bush Fire, as Ralph just said, operations are still going on.  But we also have to start thinking about what comes next, after the fire is out and contained.  So tomorrow, our BAER team will start to assess ‑‑ B‑A‑E‑R, BAER team will assess, Burn Area Emergency Response team.  What they're going to look at is again what happens next, now that the fire is concluding the burning phase.  So they're going to look at things like hydrology, public health and safety, what areas may need to get some rehabilitation, what different resource effects that have happened and what we can do to mitigate any possible effects to public health and safety or to natural resource areas like wildlife, trails, recreation, hydrology, as I said, and other areas.  So that team will be kicking off tomorrow, and it's going to be a process, and then we'll put together different reports on what work needs to be done to ensure that the area is fully taken care of after this fire is over.

Another question that was asked was, is the forest looking at forest closures for this fire season?  I can say that that's something that's being discussed and we are continually assessing the need.  I can say that we are already in Stage 2 fire restrictions, and what that means is that there's no campfires, no charcoal, no target shooting, and those measures to ensure that we're keeping fire starts to a minimum. 

Again, I want to thank you for being patient with us and patient with the firefighters and helping us get to the point where we can get people back into their homes and back to normalcy.  Again, thank you so much, and I'm available for questions.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thanks, Matt.  At this point we'll shift gears and move over and talk about the Central Fire.  So we'll have Ralph come back up and give us an update on operations happening on the fire that we're taking over, over there.

>> RALPH LUCAS:  Thank you, Michelle.  The Central Fire, I'll squeeze off the camera here a little bit so we can see the Central Fire.  This is the Bush Fire.  This being the Central Fire.  And what we've done is on a Type 1 Incident Management Team, we come with a lot of resources, for a reason.  When you have a very large fire, one of the largest fires in Arizona state's history, we put some horsepower behind it.  And that gives us capacity, it gives us capacity with people, it gives us capacity with fire engines on the ground, and it gives us capacity with resources in the air.

Knowing that, when this new start, we would call this a new start, occurred over here, east of New River, we had the capacity in speaking with the folks from the Tonto National Forest, Tom that you just had before you, knowing how we had the horsepower, we were able to reallocate our resources, some of our resources, over to the Central Fire.  Most of those resources came off of this area, remember I told you this was looking really good, so we took some resources off, leaving several folks behind, and brought them over here to address this new fire.  The cause is still unknown.  It is currently 3,956 acres.  It is 0 percent contained.  And it has 192 personnel on it.  It's broken into three divisions, A, which is Alpha, L, which is Lima, and Z which is Zulu.  The fire started right on the border of state lands and Federal lands.  Most of it obviously in the green area is within the Tonto National Forest.

So the fire ran up, up on top of the mesa, and then once it got into the grass, it started to spread laterally, side to side.  In Division Alpha, that looks really good.  This is off Mingus Road, which is right here.  We had firefighters go up this western flank, there is a small structure right in here that firefighters were able to secure and save.  And Division Alpha kind of worked around like this, feeling very confident about the western flank.

In addition, firefighters came over here down to Zulu and are working along this, but only until it gets to the base of the rim, at which point the fire goes up in elevation and across a plateau up there that is full of grass.  And as we all know, grass spreads quickly when it has fire on it and even extremely fast when there is wind behind it.

So we're good as far as it comes out to about here, but all of this area right here on Division Lima and where it starts into Division Zulu was monitored by aircraft today.  As we close out on this fire, we are going to add additional resources over here if needed.  But when I last spoke to the Incident Commander on the Central Fire, he was confident with what they had going on, and thinks that we might be able to get around this thing and not see a drastic increase in acreage, but only time will tell depending on the weather and the wind.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thanks, Ralph.  At this point we'll go now to the Cave Creek District Ranger, Dave Ramirez.  Did I get that wrong?

>> Good evening.  Dave Ramirez.  I am actually the south zone fire management officer.  So I manage both the Mesa District and the Cave Creek Ranger District fire programs.  So in the south zone, obviously it's been a very busy year for us, and actually the last two years have been very busy.  Last year on the south zone, we burned, oh, roughly 150,000 acres, we had a very wet winter the year before last and had a lot of fine fuel growth.  And then this year, another wet winter, back to back wet winters and we had a lot of residual grass from last year, and it has just been a monster of a season for us and extremely busy.

We have had 70 initial attack fires on this zone and a lot of those fires have been large wildfires.  And it's, you know, folks are getting tired and it's been a pretty rough season for us.  It's pretty exciting, you know, when we have incident management teams like Team 1, Type 1 team, a great bunch of people, and they have been a tremendous aid and support for us.  They've done a great job on two fires that they've managed on this zone.  And they've helped us with multiple initial attack fires that we've had trouble with. 

The current field conditions, our wet winter that we had, March was the second wettest winter on record, and we get all these fine fuels, and you notice it in the Valley, lots of grass, lots of invasive weeds, and it really creates a fire problem for us.  You know, it's really made for a challenging year for us, and we still have more season in front of us.

I just want to, you know, kind of shout out to my partners, all of the departments in the Valley, you know, our law enforcement partners, it has been a team effort and I'm so proud of where all of the valley resources are and their mutual aid responses and how they work together, the last couple years have really helped us be successful and the suppression of a lot of fires.  At this last fire that we had, the initial attack was pretty robust, we had lots of Valley resources that were on scene, multiple agencies, multiple departments, and, you know, we've been pretty successful.  This one, you know, even with the amount of resources that we had on hand, it managed to make it to the top of New River mesa, which this is the third year in a row that that mesa top has burned, and we just have a lot of grass and not much we can do about that.

But we've been very successful, and we haven't had any serious accidents or injuries, and, you know, it will continue to ‑‑ we'll continue to do our best.  I will just say, please, really, as the season goes on, be careful with fires.  This last fire that we had, it was in a popular shooting area, the cause of the fire is still under investigation, but really, you know, make sure that you're following the rules that we have in place for our Stage 2 restrictions.  No campfires.  No shooting.  And no charcoal.  So help us be successful.  If you see people that are not following the restrictions that we have in place, please call 911 or the Tonto National Forest and we'll deal with that.  If there are any questions about the season, working with some of our communities, any kind of fuels work, please let us know, and we can answer those questions for you.

Thanks for your support.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thank you for that.  So at this point, we are going to come back to questions here, but we want to wrap things up with our Incident Commander, Alan Sinclair.

>> ALAN SINCLAIR:  Good evening.  I'm Alan Sinclair, Incident Commander for Southwest Area Incident Management Team Team Number 1.  I want to talk about the decision to take on both fires and why it makes sense to the team.  When we were asked, I visited with the team a little bit to make sure that we would be able to give both fires the support that they need and the focus from the team and the firefighters that we needed to engage those fires.  And we were able to do so.  And I want to tell you why.  This fire, as you can see, and Ralph pointed out, the black line on the fire, those are areas where the imminent threat has been reduced, so we're very confident that these lines are going to hold.

We did have this very technical burn that finished up about midnight last night, and if you're familiar with this area where Highway 87 and 188 meet, when you top out, where you can head up to Mount Ord or head down Slate Creek, there's a lot of terrain there, it's pretty steep, it's a narrow canyon, and the potential for that fire to get across 87 and move north was pretty high.  When they finished that up last night, it put us in a much better spot.

There's still a threat there, but it's not as imminent as it was prior to that taking place.  We knew that the potential for them to be successful with that was high, and we went ahead and made the decision to take both fires.  It also made sense because the agencies that are involved in both fires were the same.  Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management and the Tonto National Forest.  We added another agency on the Central Fire, and that's the Bureau of Land Management.  So they're not directly impacted, but they are in an area that if we're not successful initially could be impacted.  So we've worked with them recently on the Sawtooth Fire, so we're familiar with everybody and it made sense to go ahead and accept the assignment.

So both fires are getting the attention they need, we'll support them both fully with the needs that they have, and I'm really proud of the work that the team and all the firefighters did on the Bush Fire and the work that's currently being done on the Central Fire.

The other thing I would like to talk about is the decision the forest made bringing the BAER team in tomorrow.  That's a very important decision.  The post‑fire effects of rain in this area have the potential to be very significant, and what happens when a landscape is denuded of vegetation due to fire is it increases runoff, and it has the potential for flooding.  And this is a very significant topographical feature, Four Peaks, Mine Mountain, Pine Mountain, Boulder Mountain, Mount Ord, that whole range has a lot of drainages that come down off of it.  So them getting a team in early to look at that and understand what impacts we might be seeing when we start getting our monsoons a very smart move.  And I really appreciate that they have that forward thinking.

With that, thanks for your support.  Please pay attention to the restrictions that are in place.  It's been a busy fire season, our crews are getting tired.  So give us a hand, and give us that support, and please pay attention to the things people are asking you not to do.  Thank you.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Thanks, Alan.  So right now, we're going to move to some questions and answers, address some of your questions out there.  To follow Alan's comments there, one of the questions we've been getting is, how can folks help?  Is there anything that the firefighters need?  And really as they said, you know, following the restrictions in place, doing things around your home to be firewise, those are all fabulous things that really help us out in the long run. 

Beyond that, social media, sharing, you know, if you are thankful for what the firefighters are doing, let them know on social media, it's helpful they're out and about working in different places, that's really the best way to reach them and pass on those messages there. 

Beyond that, we're able to get food and water out to our firefighters, we take care of them, make sure they're getting the calories they need each day, working in this extreme heat, they're kind of athletes out there, really doing amazing work.  So the little bit of support that you share, really goes a long way in boosting morale there.

To get to some of the questions about the fire and where we're at, I'll bring Ralph Lucas back up here and give him a chance to answer some of those questions live for us.

>> RALPH LUCAS:  All right.  Go ahead.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  First question, when is Highway 87 going to reopen?

>> RALPH LUCAS:  That's a great question.  I know a lot of you are concerned about the 87 road, and we are going to start entertaining the idea of opening up the 87 road probably in about two days, but I want folks out there to understand the reason why we have it closed.  One, we still have active fire along the roadway.  Two, I've got about maybe 300 firefighters up and down that road.  Hotshot crews walking up and down the road, trying to do their job and mitigate the fire.  So from a safety standpoint of the firefighters, that's one.

Secondly, there's some infrastructure damage that exists in the way of the guardrails and things along the roadway, the guardrails have fallen down, they have been burned through due to the high intensity of the fire, and we need to work with the stakeholders ADOT and such to make sure that we can at least open up the roadway and it's safe for travelers.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  The other question, when do we anticipate any changes in the status to Sunflower and their set phase?

>> RALPH LUCAS:  When can we anticipate changes to the area of Sunflower and their 'SET' stage?  I would say in the next 24 hours, we'll be releasing something as it relates to Sunflower.  We have currently brought fire around Sunflower to protect it, and that has been successful.  But common protocol for us is to stand by for about a 24‑hour period to make sure that it's very secure and we can release those sets.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Next question, the use of aerial resources, how are helicopters and aviation resources helping us out on this fire?

>> RALPH LUCAS:  That's a really good question.  We get a lot of questions about this as a team and as firefighters.  It's hard, it's very hard to understand.  So it may seem as simple as bringing in the large air tankers that drop all the retardant and stuff like that, but retardant is just that, it retards the fire from moving through a certain area.  It slows it down.  It doesn't stop it.  You have to have firefighters on the ground to go and back that up.

So the reason why we haven't been using a lot of retardant in the last few days is simply because the terrain and smoke.  There's such a high volume of smoke and so much terrain, you cannot get a large aircraft through that.  So we're having to rely on helicopters, which are rotary wing, call the big airplanes fixed wing.  Helicopters are rotary wing.  We've been using helicopters.  The analogy I can explain to you in using a helicopter would be like you probably remember standing around a campfire sometime in your life.  Imagine taking a cup of water and grabbing a teaspoon and putting the teaspoon on your campfire.  On a big campfire, it has very little effect. 

This is a big, very large fire.  So even with these large helicopters, we can just put out little areas to protect our firefighters while they're doing their work, but the fire is so lark, it's going to keep on moving.  So I hope that analogy kind of explains that.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  And where do those aircraft come from?

>> RALPH LUCAS:  We situate aircraft strategically when we're working a fire.  So on this fire, we have some at Falcon Field, we have some in Payson, we have them in Globe and then the large air tankers because of what they require as far as a runway are out of your major airports in the Phoenix metro area.  Some of them can land in smaller tanker bases, like Prescott and Winslow where they can add on more retardant and then take off again.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  Okay.

>> RALPH LUCAS:  Thanks.

>> MICHELLE FIDLER:  So one of our next questions is, what are some of the mitigations in place due to COVID‑19?  So we'll have our Incident Commander Alan Sinclair address that.

>> ALAN SINCLAIR:  So first, I'll let you know why we're paired for COVID within our community.  As wildland firefighters, they're out working in rough conditions, breathing smoky air, oftentimes camped out, camping is not real easy to keep clean all the time.  So the conditions we work in and end up living in are prime for viral spread.  The wildland community has been preparing when we saw COVID surfacing and saw that it was kind of on a collision course with fire season, we started preparing. 

So what we were asking our crews to do is maintain a module of, one, separation from other crews.  So if an engine is working together, that would be considered a module one.  A hotshot crew of 20 people would be considered a module of one.  So we're really trying to limit contact between crews.  We're asking people to wear masks when we are engaged outside of that module of one, in close proximity wit

There will be an online community meeting tonight on the Bush and Central Fires at 6 pm on Fb.com/bushfireinfo.

An American Sign Language interpreter and captioning will be provided. A recording will be posted following the meeting. No account is required to view the video. If a pop-up box appears when you first navigate to the link, you can use the scroll bar on the right to scroll down to the view and/or click “not now” to minimize the login pop-up.

We will monitor online Facebook questions during the meeting or you can e-mail us your questions at 2020.bush@firenet.gov.

Fire Information

The Bush Fire is estimated at 184,513 acres with over 10,196 acres of growth as of Saturday morning, and is now 15 percent contained. Fire has grown to the North, East and South with un-burned islands that have the potential to ignite in the afternoon and evening hours. A new fire start is reported at 1,500 ac along I-17 North of New River. Reports of smoke impacts. This is being monitored and will report further if this becomes a larger or prolonged smoke impact.

Smoke Discussion

Today will be a repeat of yesterdays conditions with decreased winds and settling of smoke over rim country. Impacts should improve throughout the morning with clearing by 10:00 am. Late morning through mid-day should see smoke moving predominantly from Tonto Basin North to Payson, Snowflake and Northeast to the I-40 corridor where at least moderate to USG AQI may be expected. Smoke will also move East along Rim Country, impacting Heber-Overgarrd, Show Low, Fort Apache Reservation. Lighter winds are expected to bring widespread smoke in the areas mentioned along with the potential for intermittent impacts North of Phoenix along the I- 17 corridor South of Camp Verde.

Extended Outlook

A pattern of high pressure and lighter South to Southwest wind is likely into next early next week that may again allow smoke to linger in the areas mentioned above.

 

Bush Fire - June 21, 2020 Morning Update

Acres: 184,531 acres (based on infrared flight)                                    Percent Containment: 15%

Start Date: Saturday, June 13, 2020                                                          Cause: Human-caused

Origin Location: 22 miles NE of Mesa, AZ                                              Fuels: Tall grass and brush

Resources: 846 total including 11 Type 1 Crews; 8 Type 2 Crews; 46 Engines; 5 bulldozers; 21 water tenders; 9 helicopters

 

Expect to See Fire and Smoke as Fuels Within the Bush Fire’s Perimeter Continue to Burn;

Firefighters Also Responding to the Central Fire; Online Community Meeting 6pm Tonight

 

Yesterday firefighters brought fire off Mount Ord and tied it in to SR 87 on the northwest side of the fire. Firefighters will be holding the area today. Firefighters will continue to patrol and protect communities as needed.

 

Residents along the Highway 188 corridor should expect to see fire and smoke as fuels burn within the large pocket of unburned fuel within the fire’s perimeter. Interactive Bush Fire perimeter map: https://tinyurl.com/Bush-Fire-Map

 

Firefighters continue to use sing a range of tactics to fully suppress the fire. They are working to protect values at risk including nearby communities, state highways, communication sites and power lines.

 

The incident management team has assumed command of the Central Fire. https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6792/

 

There will be an online community meeting tonight on the Bush and Central Fires at 6 pm on Fb.com/bushfireinfo. An American Sign Language interpreter and captioning will be provided. A recording will be posted following the meeting. No account is required to view the video. If a pop-up box appears when you first navigate to the link, you can use the scroll bar on the right to scroll down to the view and/or click “not now” to minimize the login pop-up. We will monitor online Facebook questions during the meeting or you can e-mail us your questions at 2020.bush@firenet.gov.

 

Sunflower and residents and visitors to Apache Lake remain under “Go” evacuation notice. The communities of Tonto Basin, Punkin Center, Pioneer Pass, Brownsville, Slate Creek, and Jake’s Creek have returned to “Set” mode. Gisela, Rye, Deer Creek, 76 Ranch and Bar T Bar Ranch (BT Ranch) remain in “Set” status. Evacuation and shelter info map: https://tinyurl.com/bushfirepublicinfo. Visit Maricopa County https://ready.maricopa.gov/ and Gila County: www.readygila.com/ for more information.

 

Smoke Outlook: https://fires.airfire.org/outlooks/CentralArizona

 

Visit https://az511.com/ or call 511 for current road closure information. State Route 87 is closed from Payson (milepost 251) to Bush Highway (milepost 199). State Route 188 is closed between SR 87 (milepost 276) and Roosevelt Lake at milepost 243. In addition, State Route 88 is closed between Apache Lake (milepost 229) to State Route 188 (milepost 242). The long-term SR 88 closure from east of Tortilla Flat to Apache Lake also remains in effect.

 

The Tonto National Forest has an area closure surrounding the Bush Fire. Fire restrictions remain in place. Details are available at https://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/tonto/alerts-notices.

 

Wildfires are a No Drone Zone. If you fly, we can’t. Every time a drone is spotted near the fire all aircraft are grounded until we can be sure the drone is clear of this area. More info visit http://knowbeforeyoufly.org.

 

Fire Information: 928-351-7596 (public)                                                 928-351-7723 (media)

Inciweb: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6773/                           Facebook: Fb.com/bushfireinfo Email: 2020.bush@firenet.gov                          Twitter: twitter.com/TontoForest

 

The below information is from the Gila County Sherriff's Office, released at 5:00 p.m., June 20, 2020:

For immediate release: Bush Fire Evacuation Order

Sheriff J. Adam Shepherd would like to release the following information regarding lifting the evacuation orders for the communities of Tonto Basin, Punkin Center, Pioneer Pass, Brownsville, Slate Creek, and Jake's Corner.

On June 21, 2020, at 9:00 a.m. residents within the evacuated communities from Jake's Corner to Tonto Basin will be allowed to return home. Fire personnel have determined that conditions are favorable for the safe return of our citizens.

Roadblocks will remain on State Route 87 at the State Route 188 Junction (Beeline Highway at the Roosevelt Lake turn off) and on State Route 188 at the State Route 88 junction (Roosevelt Dam). Only residents will be allowed to return to their homes. Please be prepared to show proof that you live in one of the listed communities.

 State Route 87 from State Route 188 to Bush Highway will remain closed until further notice!

Residents of the Tonto Basin and surrounding communities will remain in the "Set" mode until further notice!

Sheriff Shepherd would like to extend his thanks to all those affected by the evacuation for their patience and cooperation. The evacuation order was in place for the protection of not only residents but those responsible for fire containment and security. Sheriff Shepherd would like to further add there were no homes lost or personnel injured.