Mother Nature can often be a fickle lady, as the U.S. Forest Service recently found out.

About 80 people turned out at the Yavapai College campus in Sedona on Wednesday, June 8, for a meeting hosted by the USFS to discuss the recent smoke impacts from nearby fires. The purpose of the meeting was to give the public an opportunity to ask questions and learn about the decision-making process, limiting factors when managing fires and the different values that are taken into account when managing wildfires.

Laura Jo West, forest supervisor for the Coconino National Forest, said it receives anywhere from 300 to 600 wildfire calls a year of varying sizes. And while larger fires can be devastating to an area, fire is often necessary to help maintain the growth of the forest.

“Many understand this but we also know support can evaporate quickly when some mornings you wake up and you can’t catch your breath,” she said. “None of us in this room want to see that.”

The discussion focused on the recent lightning-caused Mormon Fire, which started May 16, six miles east of Munds Park near Mormon Mountain. Because of the favorable conditions, as well as weather outlook, the USFS used the fire as a prescribed burn to clear the area of forest fuels that had been building up for decades. Since the area is home to endangered species, a Flagstaff watershed and nearby residences, the Forest Service felt it best to manage the fire with the hope of preventing a potentially larger fire in the future.

“The objective was to make sure we were all on the same page and let the firefighters know what our expectations were,” Flagstaff District Ranger Debra Mollet said. “We set up a line of containment because we didn’t want it to all burn at the same time.”

But what was not anticipated was that the winds would shift or die down altogether which resulted in smoke funneling and settling into the Munds Park area as well as Sedona and parts of the Verde Valley over the first few days of June.

True Brown, incident commander for the Mormon Fire, said the plan was to limit the burning over the Memorial Day weekend with the goal of reducing the amount of smoke. But because the winds shifted, the Verde Valley was blanketed with smoke for three days. That’s when the USFS decided to finish the burn sooner than anticipated. But as Mollet explained, that’s not a simple task.

“We did try and shut it down as soon as we could but we had a four-mile fire line,” she said. “We tried to get the fire to the containment lines to stop it.”

Like the others, Mollet said she felt bad that the smoke caused anyone inconvenience or health concerns and like with any fire, they’re using this one as a learning tool.
Several members of the audience spoke and asked questions including why prescribed burns are
necessary, could alternatives such as grazing and lumbering be used to clear forest debris and if the same plan of attack is used in other jurisdictions across the country. Finally, one asked how they go about gathering their meteorological information.

“We’re not superhuman,” said USFS spokesman Brady Smith said. “We don’t have all the answers — we’re just trying to do the best we can. We try and balance the concerns of the public and those of the environment.”

After the meeting, Sedona resident Constance Turner said while she appreciated the Forest Service hosting the meeting, she’s hoping an alternative to prescribed burns can be found.

“I understand that we live in a forest and that fires are going to happen,” she said. “But for those of us with respiratory issues, days like those over Memorial Day weekend were very difficult.

So if fires happen naturally, that’s one thing but it would be great to find other ways to clear those forest fuels other than prescribed burns.”