Desert News

[Warph]

"You think it's HOT now, wait until Friday, Sport"

Daily Forecast for Surprise, Arizona
   TONIGHT   Partly Cloudy  Lo: 72°F   
   MONDAY   Mostly Sunny  Hi: 104°F
   
   MONDAY NIGHT   Mostly Clear  Lo: 72°F   
   TUESDAY   Mostly Sunny  Hi: 104°F
   
   TUESDAY NIGHT   Mostly Clear  Lo: 74°F   
   WEDNESDAY   Clear  Hi: 107°F
Lo: 79°F   
   WEDNESDAY NIGHT   Clear  Lo: 79°F   
   THURSDAY   Mostly Clear  Hi: 109°F
Lo: 75°F   
   THURSDAY NIGHT   Mostly Clear  Lo: 75°F   
   FRIDAY   Mostly Sunny  Hi: 113°F
   
   FRIDAY NIGHT   Partly Cloudy  Lo: 89°F   
   SATURDAY   Partly Cloudy  Hi: 113°F
Lo: 89°F   
   SUNDAY   Mostly Sunny  Hi: 112°F

[Warph]

[Warph]

"It's 124.4 degrees in the shade on my patio at 4:15 p.m., Friday"

[larryJ]

GO WEST, OLD MAN! GO WEST!  It will be almost 20 degrees cooler here.

I'm thinking the patio needs some work.  I suggest maybe a table and chairs........and an umbrella........and misters.  And maybe clean up that mess and add some new décor.  Skulls are so old-school.  Passe. Maybe use the hula girl off the dash board of your golf cart.

Larryj

[Warph]

It was 122.3 degrees today... somewhat cooler.. so I ventured off my patio.  Ran across my landscaper Jose... I offered him a beer yesterday before work and he wound up taking a six-pack.  He looks happy, tho'.  Going to hard to find another illegal landscaper as good as he was.

I wondered why he never came by to pickup his last check.  Found his pet Dodo Bird, Morris, too.

Temp dropping to 115 today so I had better get on the phone and start looking.  Gonna miss Jose.

[Diane Amberg]

What warming trend?

[Warph]

60 miles up the road from where I live.  This horrific news for my state is heartbreaking, unbelievable.  Deep-felt condolences and prayers for the grieving families and friends of these courageous 19 firefighters who lost their lives today.  May God bless them and may they rest in peace.
...Warph

Yarnell Hill Fire picked up momentum Sunday. (Source: CBS 5 News)

The Yarnell Hill Fire burning near Yarnell, AZ.
The fire, started by lightning, continues to burn along AZ89
http://www.azcentral.com/video/#top#/The+Yarnell+Hill+Fire+burning+near+Yarnell/2518833437001

Yarnell Hill Fire kills 19 firefighters


Granite Mountain Hot Shots are based in Prescott, AZ. (Source: City of Prescott)

Nineteen firefighters have died in the Yarnell Hill Fire that has ripped through half of the community and sent residents to Prescott for safety. The fire is currently burning with zero containment and has grown well past 2,000 acres.
http://www.azcentral.com/video/#top#/News/Yarnell+Hill+Fire+kills+19+firefighters/40280768001/35150280001/2518966319001

YARNELL, AZ (CBS-TV5) - Nineteen firefighters were killed in a fast-moving wildfire in the central Arizona town of Yarnell late Sunday afternoon, said the incident command post.  

Eighteen of the victims were from the Prescott Granite Mountain Hot Shots, fire officials said. It's not known where the other victim was based.  

One surviving firefighter from the team was rushed to Maricopa County Medical Center. That person's condition was not known.  

"We're an organization and city that's in grief," Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo said at a news briefing Sunday night.

"Every precaution is always taken," Fraijo said. "The trouble is sometimes it's such an erratic situation. When you have that much fuel, in those dry conditions, it becomes very unpredictable."

At least eight firefighters suffered injuries and were taken to Wickenburg Community Hospital, said hospital spokeswoman Roxie Glovers. The extent of their injuries was not known.

The Yarnell Hill Fire burned at least 250 structures and grew to 2,000 acres, command center officials said Sunday night.

"This one just got out of hand quickly," said YCSO spokesman Dwight D'Evelyn. "The winds and the dry area just fed the fire.

Earlier, the 19 firefighters battling the blaze in Yavapai County had not been heard from as the wildfire headed into town, fire officials said.

Around 6 p.m., authorities said they were unable to establish communications with them, although they had been seen from a helicopter.

The Granite Mountain Hot Shots were among the first firefighters to attack the human-caused Doce Fire that began June 18 in the Prescott National Forest, the Prescott Daily Courier reported.

Earlier Sunday, authorities evacuated the Town of Yarnell and Peeples Valley as the wildfire crept closer to homes, the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office said.

The evacuation area in Peeples Valley is west of Highway 89, north of Yarnell Road and south of Sorrell Road, sheriff's deputies said.

Residents living in Double A Ranch, Buckhorn and the Model Creek subdivision in the Yarnell area had been under mandatory orders to leave their homes.

About 400 people live in Yarnell, and several hundred reside in Peeples Valley, according to the latest census.

The fire has closed about 15 miles of State Route 89, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.  

The roadway is closed just north of Congress to south of Kirkland, from milepost 269 to milepost 285. Drivers traveling north or southbound are advised to use U.S. 93 or Interstate 17 as alternate routes.  

Sheriff's deputies said there are roadblocks at the junctions of Highway 89 and Hayes Ranch Road, Hayes Ranch Road and Sickles Ranch Road and Buckhorn and Frontier Road.

The fire broke out Friday after a lightning strike about four miles from Yarnell, said Arizona State Forestry Division Spokeswoman Carrie Dennett.  

The Yarnell Hill Fire grew to 800 acres by early Sunday afternoon.

Two evacuation shelters have been set up to help evacuees. One is at Yavapai College in Prescott at 1100 E. Sheldon St.,  the American Red Cross Grand Canyon Chapter said.

Another shelter has opened in the gymnasium at Wickenburg High School at 1090 S. Vulture Mine Road. The Red Cross opened that shelter because a 20-mile stretch of Highway 89 is closed, making it impossible for evacuated residents to get from Yarnell to Prescott.

Red Cross volunteers have set up cots and blankets for overnight stays, with evacuated residents receiving meals, as well as assistance from Red Cross nurses and mental health volunteers.

A shelter for large animals is set up at Hidden Springs Ranch, at 18701 Highway 89 in Peeples Valley.

Two hundred firefighters are trying to gain an upper hand on the wildfire.

A command center has been set up at Model Creek School.

The next news briefing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday in the Prescott city council chambers.

[Diane Amberg]

We heard too and are heart broken. It's just terrible. They are family to us all.

[Warph]

We heard too and are heart broken. It's just terrible. They are family to us all.

Thanks, Diane... yeah, very sad.  Those 19 are hopefully in a better place now.  When I was a jr. in highschool, I worked a summer for the DFPA in southern Oregon fighting fires.  They kept us youngsters off of the big fires or way in back of them, digging fire trails with pick and shovel and keeping equipment clean for the firefighters up front.  I have to tell you that fighting fires, whether a fireman or forest fire fighter, it is one of the hardest and scariest jobs there is.  God Bless them.

http://dfpa.net/newdefault.htm

http://dfpa.net/Photos.asp

[Warph]

Firefighters gain ground against deadly Arizona blaze

Map of Yarnell Fire

By Tim Gaynor and Brad Poole

PRESCOTT, Arizona | Wed Jul 3, 2013 12:18am EDT

PRESCOTT, Arizona (Reuters) - Firefighters gained ground on Tuesday for the first time against the sprawling blaze in central Arizona that killed 19 members of an elite "hotshots" crew over the weekend in the worst loss of life in a U.S. wildfire in 80 years, officials said.
While the blaze remained dangerous and unpredictable, it was no longer raging out of control, and firefighters had managed by sundown to achieve the first measure of containment around its perimeter, 8 percent, officials for the firefighting command team said.

"Crews are making good progress on the fire ... We're feeling optimistic right now," said Carrie Dennett, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Forestry Division.

"We gained some ground ... it's been a pretty good day, and the fire has stayed mostly parked where it was 24 hours ago," said Jim Whittington, a spokesman for the incident commander.

The blaze, one of dozens of wildfires burning across the western United States, turned deadly on Sunday when 19 firefighters from a specially trained outfit called the Granite Mountain Hotshots were suddenly outflanked and engulfed by wind-whipped flames in a matter of seconds.

The tragedy marks the highest death toll among firefighters or civilians from a U.S. wildland blaze since at least 25 men died battling the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, based in Boise, Idaho.

A 20th member of the hotshots team who was acting as lookout and was about a mile away from the rest of the crew on higher ground, survived unscathed but was "very distraught" and has declined to speak to the media, according to Prescott Fire Department spokesman Wade Ward.

Ignited on Friday by lightning, the blaze has blackened some 8,400 acres of dense, tinder-dry chaparral, oak scrub and grasslands as it roared largely unchecked in its first four days.

Authorities have estimated that 50 to 200 structures, most of them homes, have been destroyed in and around the tiny town of Yarnell, about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix. But they said more time was needed to arrive at a firmer figure on property losses.

From the air on Monday evening, extensive fire damage was visible in the western outskirts of Yarnell but the center of town looked relatively untouched.

Yarnell and the adjacent community of Peeples Valley, which together are home to roughly 1,000 people, remained evacuated.

Fire command spokesman Dennis Godfrey told Reuters the so-called Yarnell Hills fire was posing no immediate additional threat to property in the area.

However, the blaze remained a formidable challenge, he said, adding, "We're considering it far from being over. It's far from being a mop-up operation." Full containment of the fire is not expected for at least another 10 days, officials said.

A Reuters photographer who flew over the fire zone on Monday evening reported that little fire activity could be seen from the air, with a relatively small patch of low-level burning discernable on the area's eastern edge.

Whittington said powerful, erratic winds that earlier had stoked the fire and caused volatile changes in its direction subsided on Monday night and Tuesday, helping some 600 firefighters battling the blaze finally make some headway.

He said fire managers were still concerned about thunderstorms that appeared to be moving into the area late on Tuesday, bringing the possibility of a renewed burst of strong, unruly winds.

Fire incident commander Clay Templin told displaced residents at a community meeting that evacuees would probably not be allowed to return to their homes before Saturday.

The fallen Arizona firefighters were based in the town of Prescott, about 30 miles northeast of the fire zone. Residents there paid tribute to the 19 men, most of them in their 20s, in a memorial service on Monday evening and a candlelight vigil on Tuesday night.

A makeshift shrine has sprung up outside a Prescott fire house, drawing dozens of people who paid their respects by leaving flowers, flags, condolence cards, photos and mementos at the site.

The remains of the firefighters Sunday were transported in a cortege-like procession of 19 coroner's vans to the medical examiner's office in Phoenix for autopsies.

The exact circumstances of the disaster were under investigation, but fire officials said the doomed hotshots team appeared to have been following proper procedures.



(Additional reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Christopher Wilson)