Fire on Mountain

Arizona Daily Star 4/29/2007

Lightning starts fire in Santa Ritas

A lightning-sparked fire atop a peak in the Santa Ritas south of Tucson burned about 270 acres of grass and brush Saturday, the Forest service said.

The fire started about noon at 5400-foot elevation on Mount Fagan, and two firefighting crews were on the scene last night and a third crew is due to arrive today.

No Structures were threatened, and the blaze has been beneficial so far because it’s clearing out brush and grass that has been accumulated for years, said Coronado National Forest spokes woman Heidi Schewel.

"At this point it’s burning fuel that needs to be burned," she said. There weren’t any weather-related problems for firefighters, she added.

The fire, in the eastern end of the mountain range, was visible from Tucson Saturday night, leading a number of concerned residents to call the Forest Service.

"Its important for the public to know that the fire will look worse and closer at night than it really is," Schewel said. "It’s nowhere near Tucson …. And if it gets worse, we can increase suppression efforts as needed."

This fire was about 1 to 1 ½ miles from our house. I can vouch that on Sat. night it looked impressive. We went to town about noon on Sat and returning about 6 pm one could see the heavy black Smoke and as we got closer to home we could see the helicopters bringing in water. We are ½ mile from the Nation forest boundary and have many neighbors on the boundary.

It was exciting and a little scary, but by Monday it was out.