initial-attack a new fire burning just north of the Mogollon Rim in Arizona’s Coconino National Forest, which sprawls over nearly two million acres of mountains, ponderosa-covered plateaus, and red-rock formations in the north-central part of the state. The new fire had started that afternoon during what law enforcement described as a spirit quest gone wrong: A camper had lit and lost control of a bonfire along a ridgeline overlooking a popular lake between Flagstaff and Phoenix. The escaped fire, called the Hart, was burning in a dangerous patch of dead trees, and fire managers in the Coconino National Forest wanted it out before it became a serious problem. Before nightfall, Scott and the rest of Granite Mountain would be cutting line.
From his seat, Scott looked out over the Mogollon Rim, out pastthe sandstone cliffs in the foreground, over the ponderosas and firs sweeping down through the rim’s apron, and onto the desert and a layer of dust clouding the horizon in the distant south.
He knew this country well. It was where he’d fallen for hotshotting. A few years earlier, on an assignment not far from where Granite Mountain’s buggies were bumping down the road, he’d shot a short video. In it, Scott’s wearing his hard hat and yellow Nomex shirt. He points the camera at himself and says, “Sitting here in the shade watching two of my favorite things develop.” He pivots the camera to flames in the foreground. “Fire.” Then pans to a series of dark-bottomed clouds. “And weather.”
CHAPTER 8
BAD MEMORIES
T he prospect of fighting fire on the Mogollon Rim raises the hackles of any hotshot who has been around long enough. The pines grow thick, the escarpment is predictably windy, the terrain falls precipitously, and—because these features also add to the cliff band’s astonishing beauty—thousands of vacation homes are scattered throughout the forest. But the Mogollon Rim’s notoriety stems almost entirely from one particular day when a blaze, the Dude Fire, became a meteorological anomaly. It still haunts the profession today.
June 26, 1990, broke every heat record in Phoenix history. It was 122 degrees. The airport canceled flights because planes had never been tested in such extreme conditions and the tires might melt—nobody knew. A regionwide heat wave had hit during a drought like none seen in the Southwest since the 1950s, and forecasters predicted June 26 would be the most volatile day of Arizona’s fire season. It exceeded expectations.
When plants burn, the water held in their tissues vaporizes, and meteorologists studying the blaze years later calculated that by around noon the Dude Fire had sent more than a million gallons of water skyward. Thirty thousand feet above the flames, the heat of the fire and moisture combined to form a supercharged thunderstorm thatperched directly over the blaze. A wildfire creating its own weather is a relatively common phenomenon, but what happened around 2 P.M . on June 26, when the fire was more than a thousand acres and burning at its peak intensity, was exceedingly rare and dangerous: the thunderstorm and smoke column collapsed.
By noon on June 26, the Dude Fire had spread across three square miles of ponderosa forest, with one flank burning within a few hundred yards of the eighty homes in the Bonita Creek subdivision, forty miles north of Payson. As always, after personal safety, the firefighters’ first priority was protecting homes. The incident commander recognized the blaze as far too intense to attack head-on and instead opted to herd the fire, using five hotshot crews and two Type 2 Initial Attack crews to attempt to contain the blaze.
Seen from above, the lines used to steer the Dude Fire around the Bonita Creek subdivision formed an incomplete
H
. The road atop the Mogollon Rim contained the blaze’s left flank. Some two thousand feet below this line and running parallel to the rim, a firebreak the Civilian Conservation
From his seat, Scott looked out over the Mogollon Rim, out pastthe sandstone cliffs in the foreground, over the ponderosas and firs sweeping down through the rim’s apron, and onto the desert and a layer of dust clouding the horizon in the distant south.
He knew this country well. It was where he’d fallen for hotshotting. A few years earlier, on an assignment not far from where Granite Mountain’s buggies were bumping down the road, he’d shot a short video. In it, Scott’s wearing his hard hat and yellow Nomex shirt. He points the camera at himself and says, “Sitting here in the shade watching two of my favorite things develop.” He pivots the camera to flames in the foreground. “Fire.” Then pans to a series of dark-bottomed clouds. “And weather.”
CHAPTER 8
BAD MEMORIES
T he prospect of fighting fire on the Mogollon Rim raises the hackles of any hotshot who has been around long enough. The pines grow thick, the escarpment is predictably windy, the terrain falls precipitously, and—because these features also add to the cliff band’s astonishing beauty—thousands of vacation homes are scattered throughout the forest. But the Mogollon Rim’s notoriety stems almost entirely from one particular day when a blaze, the Dude Fire, became a meteorological anomaly. It still haunts the profession today.
June 26, 1990, broke every heat record in Phoenix history. It was 122 degrees. The airport canceled flights because planes had never been tested in such extreme conditions and the tires might melt—nobody knew. A regionwide heat wave had hit during a drought like none seen in the Southwest since the 1950s, and forecasters predicted June 26 would be the most volatile day of Arizona’s fire season. It exceeded expectations.
When plants burn, the water held in their tissues vaporizes, and meteorologists studying the blaze years later calculated that by around noon the Dude Fire had sent more than a million gallons of water skyward. Thirty thousand feet above the flames, the heat of the fire and moisture combined to form a supercharged thunderstorm thatperched directly over the blaze. A wildfire creating its own weather is a relatively common phenomenon, but what happened around 2 P.M . on June 26, when the fire was more than a thousand acres and burning at its peak intensity, was exceedingly rare and dangerous: the thunderstorm and smoke column collapsed.
By noon on June 26, the Dude Fire had spread across three square miles of ponderosa forest, with one flank burning within a few hundred yards of the eighty homes in the Bonita Creek subdivision, forty miles north of Payson. As always, after personal safety, the firefighters’ first priority was protecting homes. The incident commander recognized the blaze as far too intense to attack head-on and instead opted to herd the fire, using five hotshot crews and two Type 2 Initial Attack crews to attempt to contain the blaze.
Seen from above, the lines used to steer the Dude Fire around the Bonita Creek subdivision formed an incomplete
H
. The road atop the Mogollon Rim contained the blaze’s left flank. Some two thousand feet below this line and running parallel to the rim, a firebreak the Civilian Conservation
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