[Az-Geocaching] Aspen Fire: Scopes & homes

[Jim Scotti]

Hi Trisha,
    Our telescopes are over on Kitt Peak, no where near the Aspen fire or the
one in the Rincons, but they've just recently been clearing out some of the
potential fuel sources around buildings up there and apparently they have
been doin that near Mt. Lemmon telescopes as well recently.
    I've been putting together a webpage with my pictures of the Aspen fire -
here's the URL.  
http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/aspen_fire/
    The fire looked like the first 2 days or even a little less than that
before it blew up yesterday around noon or so.  I think it was creeping down
into Marshall Gulch until it crossed the trail there and just roared up the
side of the ridge on the other side and then on into Summerhaven.  The Mt.
Lemmon telescopes are west of the ski area west of the fire.  I'm not
optomistic about that direction since there isn't much to stop it over there.  
Hopefully the clearing they did around the telescopes will keep the fire away
- the whole area is relatively clear, as I recall.  I've never been into the
telescope compound, but it's inside the radar facility and I've been to the
fence when we were hiking down in the area around Cascade Spring and otu to
the Lemmon Rock Lookout years ago.  In the other direction, the Mt. Bigelow
observatory is east of the fire just north of the Catalina Highway and I'm a
bit more optomistic about it since the Bullock fire came within about a half
mile of those telescopes last year, protecting it from the north while the
Mt. Lemmon highway would probably be a good firebreak if it came in from the
west.
    It was really sad to see the footage of houses burning in Summerhaven on
the news last night.  From here, you can't really tell what exactly is
burning or where it is burning.  I've heard of only one injured firefighter
so far and he was apparently overcome by heat exhaustion, so hopefully
nothing serious.  I think all the holdouts in Summerhaven left with the
firefighters about 12:30 - at least one of them (the owner of the Lodge, I
think) was interviewed on the news last night.  A colleague here at LPL
own(ed) a cabin up in Summerhaven.  He was not optomistic about it surviving.  
His cabin was on the south end of Summerhaven in Carter Canyon and he was
just crossing his fingers that maybe it went around that area into
Summerhaven.  At least he has insurance.

Jim.

On Fri, 20 Jun 2003, Trisha wrote:

> Jim Scotti,
> 
> Are those your scopes that are at risk from the fire? I don't know
> where you work from.
> 
> Commentary.....
> 
> So sad to hear about the many people who have lost homes or a
> business, esp. the ones who live up there are, as that is their ONLY
> home (vs. a summer home).
> 
> Very glad that so far there have been no reports of any serious
> injury. I had heard that there were a handful that refused to evacuate
> on the first go-around, (we always have to deal with that issue when
> we do an evacuation....we ask the people for a name and number for a
> next-of-kin notification and it usually gets them to THINK) at least
> they wisely reconsidered and left when all the fire fighters, etc, had
> to pull back. Property can be replaced (or not), lives can not.
> 
> Tinder-dry, windy, hot and now a delayed monsoon season? geez!
> 
> Trisha
> Prescott
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Jim Scotti
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA                 http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/