Charred skeletons of trees along the road in La Barranca II in the Village of Oak Creek remind the subdivision’s residents of how quickly a fire can start and spread in the heat of the summer.
By Susan Johnson
Larson Newspapers
Charred skeletons of trees along the road in La Barranca II in the Village of Oak Creek remind the subdivision’s residents of how quickly a fire can start and spread in the heat of the summer.
Two years ago, on Thursday, June 1, 2006, a spark from a workman’s equipment ignited a blaze that ultimately consumed vegetation on 836 acres and burned down eight buildings, including a Piñon Woods Drive home and a guesthouse.
Kathie and Jim Manning, along with other homeowners in the area, do not want the same thing to happen again.
As a precaution, the Mannings and their neighbors are working to develop defensible space around their homes and to proactively manage large common sections by hiring landscape crews to take down and haul away the most dangerous fuels.
“At our March board meeting, we formed a fire prevention committee,” said Kathie Manning, president of the La Barranca II homeowner’s association. “They walked the subdivision and decided that the first priority should be the common areas.”
In addition, the committee sent letters to all of the subdivision’s property owners asking them to participate.
“So far, the response has been very positive,” Manning said.
Deputy Fire Marshal Gary Johnson, of the Sedona Fire District, is helping the homeowners determine the best sequence of action by walking both the private and the common properties to assess which conditions pose the highest risk.
“We’re not asking anyone to clear cut or bulldoze their properties, we’re just trying to take the environment that currently exists and achieve a balance,” Johnson said. “Our goal is to make it more difficult for a fire to spread.”
In addition to modifying the conditions surrounding existing homes, Johnson is helping the HOA establish guidelines for new home construction that will incorporate Firewise strategies.
“Gary attended one of our board meetings and presented a wildland hazard assessment report for us,” Manning said.
As a result, the HOA is developing a five-year plan for the subdivision.
Johnson identified a 26-acre wash in the common area as being in need of remediation.
“There’s a large, uninterrupted fuel load down there that poses the most serious threat,” Johnson said. “The balancing act means retaining the environment that attracted residents in the first place, but interrupting the path of a fire.”
The science of wildland fires has been studied by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group which subsequently established a Web site, www.firewise.org, for those who want more information on establishing defensible space around their homes and businesses.
According to the Web site, a triangle of fuel, oxygen and heat are required for ignition of a fire which can be started by sun, lightning or human carelessness, including tossing a cigarette butt on the ground, failing to completely extinguish a campfire, allowing burning debris to spread and using fireworks.
Once a fire is started, fuel, weather and topography affect the spread of flames, with slopes being particularly dangerous since fire tends to spread uphill very quickly due to ambient wind that preheats uphill fuel.
“Areas in the subdivision are now being labelled in terms of their ladder fuels and their relative slopes,” Manning said. “We’ll address the most critical sections first.”
The 2006 La Barranca Fire was both terrifying and inconvenient, costing $1.6 million to fight and engaging 300 firefighters, specialty hotshot and strike crews and two helicopters,
However, it could have been
far worse.
More than 150 homes and outbuildings that were in the path of the fire were saved and no lives were lost.
“We were glad the firefighters got here as fast as they did,” Jim Manning said.
Susan Johnson can be reached at 282-7795, Ext. 129 or e-mail sjohnson@larsonnewspapers.com
