The Hardy Fire scorched southeast of Flagstaff in June of 2010, drawing dangerously close to several neighborhoods and forcing Flagstaff Fire Department officials to implement mandatory evacuations. Luck would have it that forested areas around the Little America hotel had been treated to diminish fire intensity, allowing firefighters to contain the fire that had, at one point, jumped across a nearly eighth of a mile Rio De Flag drainage. After several days, when firefighters had containment in their sight, the Hardy fire's big sister peeked out as black smoke rising above mountains to the north--- the Schultz fire had begun it's run.
The days that followed serve as a sharp reminder of the devastation forest fires can present. Nearly 50 homes northeast of the city were damaged by the subsequent flooding and 15,000 acres of forest were destroyed. City of Flagstaff officials, realizing the necessity of forest treatments near the city to avoid a more disastrous repeat of the Schultz fire, began a public awareness campaign in 2012 that culminated in the passage of proposition 405 in November to allocate $10 million of taxpayer money on what is now known as the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project (FWPP).
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Voters approved the proposition with a near 74 percent approval rating. Unlike other locally sourced funding for similar projects around the nation, Flagstaff's is the first to result from a direct citizen vote. Other projects rely on utility fees over time for preservation projects, whereas Flagstaff's model allows for quicker implementation with immediate funding.
Funding comes from property taxes that are held level --- as old bonds are retired, new ones are sold. Although no additional money will be taken from residents' pockets for FWPP, polls conducted by Erik Nielsen at Northern Arizona University indicate that 55 percent of the supporters for the bond issue in November wrongly believed they would be paying more than $100 a year in additional taxes.
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FWPP will restore two areas of forest to a more manageable state that is closer to what would have been seen before humans altered the forest landscape. Proposed forest treatment techniques involve removing trees through hand and mechanical thinning as well as prescribed burnings.
The targeted forest acres will be in the Dry Lake Hills region of the Rio de Flag watershed and the North end of Mormon mountain adjacent to the Lake Mary watershed. Combined, the regions add up to nearly 11,000 acres.
Those involved see many parallels between this project and what could have been avoided with thinning in the area affected by the Schultz fire.
"Very similarly scaled to the Schultz [fire]" said Art Babbott, member of the Coconino County Board of Supervisors and member of the communication team for FWPP, "as far as number of acreage. Really, the important point is what it costs for us to mitigate after a flood and fire vs. what it costs to thin [and] reduce that threat."
Babbott represents District 1 in Coconino County. District 1 is located north of Flagstaff, near Dry Lake Hills. Babbott's constituents will be impacted by the thinning process, but still support the proposed action, he says.
If the Dry Lake Hills region caught on fire, the effects would be much more devastating than the Schultz fire, says Mark Brehl, the wildland fire lead worker for the Flagstaff Fire Department and project coordinator for FWPP.
"The Schultz fire opened our eyes to the severity of the potential impact," Brehl said. "Seeing what it did there, the extent of recovery, the continuing threat of flooding and imagining that coming into a much heavier populated area is pretty shocking."
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Ongoing response after the Schultz fire is estimated to have cost $130 million to $140 million so far, according to a study by the Rural Policy Institute at NAU. The estimates take into account things like mitigation construction and flood protection.
The Dry Lake Hills region, connected to the Rio de Flag watershed that runs through Flagstaff, is closer to those more populated areas of Flagstaff Brehl is concerned about. Forest fire in the region and subsequent flooding would impact the Sunnyside neighborhood, downtown Flagstaff, Coconino Estates, Cheshire neighborhood, and the northern portion of Northern Arizona University. The impacts would run up a higher tab.
"The risks of doing nothing are just too great," Babbott said. "[We are well past]a 'hope for the best' strategy. . . due to climate, drought and unhealthy forest conditions. Should what occurred at the Schultz Fire and subsequent flooding occur in the Dry Lake Hills Rio de flag watershed we would be very likely looking at a price tag of $500 million up to a billion dollars of impact [on private] property, community property values and economic development."
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To the south of Flagstaff is the Lake Mary Watershed and Mormon mountain, the other region looked at for forest treatments. The Lake Mary Watershed supplies 50 percent of the city's water.
Fires along the North side of Mormon mountain could lead to flooding that would carry debris from the forested areas into the Lake Mary Reservoir.
"Sediment would clog up the reservoir reducing storage capacity," Brehl said. "The ash and organic matter would change the water composition to the point that the Lake Mary water treatment facility would not be able to process that water."
Replacing 50 percent of Flagstaff's potable water supply would require one of two theoretical responses. First, the city could drill new wells and plumbing to the water treatment facilities currently in place. Another option would be updating the facility's water treatment capabilities so the higher levels of debris and contaminants could be filtered out.
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Overgrown forests are no new concept to Northern Arizona. In addition to these efforts on behalf of the city and its citizens, collaborative efforts like FWPP, but on a broader scale, have planned to thin forests and reduce fire intensity. The Four Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI) is a federally funded collaborative mission to thin forests surrounding the targeted acreage of FWWP.
FWPP targets harder-to-treat areas of forest that 4FRI isn't designed to handle. Whereas 4FRI covers more forest ground, FWPP will thin steeper, more difficult terrain. The two projects are similar in their collaborative methods, and involve similar interest parties. Erin Phelps, the NEPA writer for the Forest Service, which is involved with both projects, sees the current state of the forest as a product of more than 100 years of man-made changes.
"Fire exclusion since the 1900s . . . resulted in a lot of build-up of fuels," Phelps said. "In Northern Arizona we have a frequent fire regime which means that this area was adapted to a lot of small lightning strikes; small intensity, frequent fires would kind of clean up the forest"
Fire suppression techniques and grazing are two significant factors that have led to the current state of today's forests. Small debris buildup in the forests traditionally would burn often, but would not get hot enough or big enough to reach the canopy level of the forest. With increasingly advanced fire suppression techniques, starting most significantly with technological advances during World War II, small fuel sources were allowed to build up.
Today, forest density has risen from around 20 to 60 trees per acre up to around 500 to 2000 trees per acre, according to Brehl. This increased tree density ensures a more continuous canopy cover that, when the bigger and hotter fires ignite in built up fuel below, will also burn continuously.
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Residents of northern Flagstaff can expect to see logging trucks and forest thinning begin working as soon as fall of this year. Possible impacts on daily life could include road closures, recreational trail closures, air quality impacts from prescribed burnings and increased traffic in work areas. Any concerned residents should consult flagstaffwatershedprotection.org, where residents can learn how to become more involved in the planning process and subscribe to updates on potential impacts in their neighborhood.
Ultimately, though forest treatment is not impact-free for residents, the results hope to maintain Flagstaff's "gem in the mountains" status quo.
If a fire started in the Dry Lake Hills project area on a hot windy day, the whole area could be burned in one day. A single day of burning could destroy Flagstaff's scenic view of the San Francisco Peaks.
"The long-term benefit drastically outweighs the short-term impacts and, if the area burned, we're talking significant, long term impacts," Brehl said. "I don't think [Flagstaff] would ever recover if we had a fire in the Dry Lake Hills and subsequent flooding. I personally don't think I would see it recover in my lifetime."
Clark Mindock is a journalism student at Northern Arizona University
