Arizona Fires

 It seems there are fires everywhere.  Most of California is blazing away due to heavy underbrush that hasn't been cleaned out in years.  To make it even worse, old logging and fire roads that act as fire breaks have been allowed to erode away and become overgrown.  Obviously, that's a recipe for disaster.

In Arizona ... yup, believe it or not there ARE forests in Arizona ... they have the same problem, except the hills are so steep and rocky around here that fire roads don't even exist.  Generally they try to save houses and just let it burn, praying the wind doesn't come up and turn a nice burn into a conflagration.

The biggest around here was the Bighorn Fire.  It started from a lightning strike in the mountains and headed southeast towards the towns of Oracle and Tucson.  At night, we could see the flames, but we were very far away.  This is not my picture.

It burned a little under 120,000 acres, threatening the little town of Summerhaven at the top of Mount Lemmon.  Something like 20+ years ago a fire blew through Summerhaven, burning up most of the town.

We decided to take a ride up the Catalina Mountains and see what damage this fire had done.  We were surprised to see almost every single turnout closed.  Several little campgrounds with restrooms were also closed, along with every trailhead.  We have no idea why.

So .... I crossed the line, literally, and ducked under the Do Not Enter tape and took this picture of Tucson.

 It was a very smoggy hazy day from fires still burning elsewhere in Arizona.  We certainly could use a good rain to clear it out.  The mostly green spot in the middle of this picture is Bear Canyon.

 

To be honest, the main reason we drove up there was to get cool.  It's always 20 degrees cooler at the top, although on this day that meant mid 80's, so still very warm.

 

 This is the sight from the biggest view point before heading back into the forest.  That's the road you can see on the left.  I just can't imagine how they built roads on these rocky cliffs.  Lucky for me, Patty let me sit up front.  The roads are SO twisty turny that I get VERY car sick.

 

This is HOODOO country.  This looks like me after having been locked up for five months and hitting the fridge every other hour.

 Finally, we came into the fire area.  Rather than the total destruction we expected to see, there were only fingers of fire burning down the hills and basically beneath the trees.  The ground cover and pine needles weren't even fully burned. 

 

On the other side of the mountain there was more destruction where the fire came up the hill, helped along by the wind from hot air rising.  The mountain is so steep and rocky in this area that no buildings exist.  Still, there wasn't total destruction.  You can see only small sections that burned completely. 

 Looking over the other side into San Pedro Valley, we couldn't see much burned area either.  The entire focus of the Fire Department was to save the little town of Summerhaven with it's dozens and dozens of cabins perched on the mountain side, many which were rebuilt after the last fire.  

 Lucky for them, the Fire Department did a great job.  Even though the fire got pretty close in some areas, none of the houses burned down, at this location anyway.

 All that wondering and driving made us extremely hungry.  This is basically the only sit-down restaurant in town.  There is one more up the hill at the ski resort, and a pizza/cookie place (Mt. Lemmon Cookie Cabin) but it was closed.  If you are ever in Tucson, definitely drive up for the cookies.  They are the size of a dinner plate!!  This is Sawmill Run.

 It is a great place to stop for a burger. They only had outside service, but that suited us just fine.  I almost forgot to take a picture of our bacon cheeseburger that Patty shared with me.  Half was more than enough to fill me up.  Much as I love sweet potato fries, they only had tots.  Don't waste your money on those.

 Just because we could, we stopped in at a little gift shop.  You never know what you might find.  They advertised FUDGE!  That certainly got my attention.  I headed straight to the counter.  I watched the gal cut off a half pound chunk and put it on the scale.  $16.99 popped up on the side.  WHAT?  That makes this fudge almost $32.00 a pound!!  Patty ... we need to go into the fudge-making business!!

Needless to say, I came home with NO fudge.  Ice cream is better anyway.  

Back to reality and hot air, I wasn't disappointed when I checked the game camera yesterday.  More critters came to visit.