Discussions are now in early stages of a likely multi-year relocation
While work continues on the building of the new Sedona Fire District Station 4 at 401 Jordan Road in Uptown Sedona with an anticipated opening in November 2027, Red Rock District Ranger Alex Schlueter announced during an Oct. 27 presentation that the SFD is currently eyeing a new location for Station 5.
The discussion would aim to move Station 5 from 3971 SR 89A to about 0.3 miles north of Slide Rock State Park on the east side of the road, currently marked by an unassuming small metal gate onto U.S. Forest Service land.
SFD’s effort to relocate its smallest station is predicated on reducing dispatch times in Oak Creek Canyon by being more centrally located 3.2 miles north and to be able to have a larger building footprint for modern equipment.
“There’s not a lot of available land in Oak Creek Canyon,” SFD Ed Mezulis said. “Secondary to that, SFD has been in conversations on and off since 2005 with the state parks about locating a fire facility on Slide Rock State Park, and then, about a year and a half ago, I put together a formal submission, and SFD submitted a formal request to Arizona [State Parks & Trails] to review a partnership, and they turned it down.”
This caused SFD leaders to pivot and start looking at the land that “we affectionately call the rock quarry,” Mezulis said, and submit a Stand Form 299 to discuss the ability of SFD to purchase or lease the land from the federal government for a new Station 5.
Mezulis said that it is a multi-year process to navigate soil and environmental studies “and a whole slew of other federal regulations,” for a potential land deal.
Less Fuel, Fewer Fires
SFD is among the collaborators with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, for a future proposal from Coconino National Forest’s Red Rock Ranger District to reduce the amount of combustible material on the Forest Service land adjacent to private land around the Village of Oak Creek, collaborating with the USFS.
“What we’re proposing that will come next year is a fuel treatment near the VOC,” Schlueter said. “During the Pocket Fire, you all saw that the fire started just north of Sedona, and every day that [the] wind … blew from the southwest to the northeast. That is our predominant wind, and we have all these communities that are at risk to fire. The ones that are right in the path of where the predominant wind pushes are the ones to the south of the VOC. So that’s where we’re starting.”
Schlueter added that the potential is there to expand that work into “neighborhoods and areas within Sedona proper.” The details are still being worked out and the project will go through the National Environmental Policy Act with a public comment period opening up sometime in 2027.
“There’s kind of a multilayered approach right now. So we’ve got what we’re calling the Greater Flagstaff region, which encompasses Flagstaff all the way down to south of the VOC, and we’re putting together a community wildfire protection plan,” Mezluis said. “Part of that [Community Wildfire Protection Plan], there’s multiple initiatives embedded in it, and one of them was initiated by Red Rock Ranger District and the Forest Service, and they’re really looking at a comprehensive fuels mitigation package for south of the VOC and kind of going up towards the southern part of the [Red Rock] Loop lands.”
