Camp Wood Ponderosa – The late afternoon light adds a glow to a ponderosa pine grove at Camp Wood.
East of Camp Wood, the road is wide and smooth as it rolls through the Santa Maria Mountain foothills. There are a few isolated places with washboards, but it’s quiet enough you might think that they paved it, although the plume of dust you see in the rearview mirror proves otherwise.
Queen Anne and I visited here the week after a heavy rain, so it packed down the dust, but the roadside troughs were full of debris. As we drove further, it looked like road crews had hosed the gutters with oil, because they were so black. We questioned if that was to keep the dust down, or were they preparing to pave the east end of Camp Wood Road. As soon as I got those questions out of my mouth, we rounded a bend and found a scene of utter destruction. On the north side of the trail, everything was normal, with pinions, chaparral, and gamble oak covering the landscape, but the south side was black and barren. Only charcoal-colored tree skeletons dotted the hills and valleys.
This road section was the location of the lightning-caused Sheridan Fire—one of those forest fires you watch on the evening news as they bomb the countryside with a fire retardant. The reporters tell you it’s near Prescott—but they’re always near Prescott—and it’s so remote that you don’t pay much attention. The fire started on August 5th, and it burnt through 22 thousand acres until early September rains finally put it out. I’ve never visited such a fresh burn site. Unbroken black ash covered the ground, and the rains washed some of it into the road gutters. The Forest Service blocked all of the side-roads, and hiking trails leading south with signs warning of fire danger.
Because Camp Wood Road is so wide here, it worked as an effectual fire break. The stark contrast between the left and right sides of the road drove home the destructive power of a forest fire. Although it looks like a barren wasteland now, within a few weeks, grasses will begin to sprout, and the fire area will renew itself. That’s how nature works.
Sheridan Manzanita – Red bark manzanita burnt in the 2019 Sheridan Fire near Camp Wood, Arizona
When we got to a place where I could see Cottonwood Mountain as a backdrop, I stopped to take a few images. My favorite of the group is this week’s featured image. It shows burnt Manzanita skeletons in front of the flat-top mountain. Manzanita is one of my favorite plants because of its mahogany-colored bark, as you see in the photo. It only grows at higher altitudes in Arizona, and it’s hard to photograph because its dense round green leaves always hide the brightly colored branches. I called this image Sheridan Manzanita, and I hope you enjoy viewing it.
You can see a larger version of Sheridan Manzanita on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing it. Next week, we’ll make another stop along the Camp Wood road for yet another change of scenery. I hope you’ll join us.
It was the Wednesday before July 4th and the Lightner Creek Campground and Cabins staff were making preparations for the busy weekend when our friends and fellow camp hosts – Tony and Amelia – raced into the park. This was unusual because the speed limit is 5 mph and camp hosts try to enforce it. They had just come back from town and breathlessly told us that there was a house on fire just east of the campgrounds. We all rushed up the park’s hill to gawk.
It was the house of our, shall we say, interesting neighbor. She lives there with her kids and they regularly shoot off fireworks and guns. On Memorial Day there were loud gun shots coming from there well into the night which made the campground guests nervous. Someone called the sheriff, but the shots stopped before they got there. One of her other neighbors said there were three loud explosions before the house caught fire. The house was burning very quickly and the color of the flames suggested that a gas fueled the flames. Rumors in the community said that she grew pot and processed something more potent in a back room, but we never verified any of that.
As we stood on the hill, we watched the fully engulfed house, when suddenly the fire jumped to the trees and started up the mountain. We all started panicking and using a lot of four letter words. Thank God the wind was blowing away from us.
Amelia – a 911 dispatcher in a previous life – asked if there was an evacuation plan. Robert and Andrea, the owners, fetched ours from office and contacted its creator – the original owner who lives alone at the campground’s west end. She came over, very upset and helped coördinate the evacuation. The plan broke the campgrounds into sections. The owners assigned camp hosts different sections and sent them to their assigned area with instructions for how each campsite should exit. We told everyone to “prepare to evacuate”. It couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes when we got a “MANDATORY EVACUATION” from Code Red – a must have cell phone app. No matter where you are in the USA, it will send you emergency alerts for your area. When the alert sounded, the camp hosts spread out to their assigned areas and began evacuating the campers. Several people were in Durango then, but we made sure anyone in the campgroundsknew they had to leave. After we got the guests out, Deb and I started to hook up our trailer, but before we could, a sheriff showed up in front of our rig and said we had to leave; NOW! So we started throwing stuff in the truck and car and abandoned the trailer. I had time to put in the awnings and turn off the propane, but that was it. A personal evacuation plan for our RV is on my to-do list from now on.
The fire quickly spread after jumping the road. Fortunately, the wind kept it away from the campgrounds.
The campground is in a box canyon and the only way out was down the road toward the fire. The wind was blowing the fire away from us, but it had jumped the road and started up Perins Peak to the north. The fire had jumped across high enough that the road was not blocked. We drove through a maze of fire trucks but finally made it to Hwy 160. We assembled on the side of the highway and wondered what to do. We could see the smoke billowing out of the canyon and flames crawling up Perins Peak. We didn’t know if we would have anything to return to, but we got everyone out safely.
After getting out of the canyon, we gathered at the sided of the road to ponder what to do next.
One of the guests in the group got word that the Red Cross was at the La Plata County Fairgrounds setting up an evacuation center. A seasoned camp host knew where it was, so most of us followed him. Wouldn’t you know it, the fairgrounds booked a rodeo for the holiday and the parking lot was full. Trailers and motorhomes were redirected to the high school parking lot next door. The next day the shelter moved to the Escalante Middle School which had a big parking lot for rigs. The Rocky Mountain Team Black Hotshot fire fighters moved into the fairground shelter. By the way, the Red Cross was great! They provided a place to sleep, water, snacks, and food – donated by various town restaurants.
Deb and I opted for a hotel room instead of trying to sleep in a dormitory full of kids, dogs, and people. When I got on the phone I found out that most of the hotels were booked for the big weekend. I finally found a room at the Holiday Inn, and we spent two nights there until they let us go retrieve our trailer. One at a time, a sheriff escorted the camp hosts in to hook up trailers then get out. The fire was only 20% contained so planes were flying over us while helicopters picked up water from trout ponds close to the road. Some idiot was flying a drone in restricted air space and delayed air operations a day (he was later found and he’s facing charges).
This is the ridge that the fire went up when it first started. The wind blew it over to the other side. This ridge goes right up behind the campground. The burn line runs along the ridge line and the only campground exit was down the canyon and past the fire.
It was a relief pulling our rig out of the park. We headed straight for the middle school parking lot where we dry camped for two nights. The Red Cross commandeered the dining room and they organized a big meeting on the fire’s fourth day with all the players; fire fighters, police, sheriffs, etc. who gave us the status of the fire. Denver TV stations filmed the meeting and we made the evening news. They told us that the fire was still only 20% contained, but they were letting some homeowners return to their homes. Since we were not home owners but were permanent summer residents, officials excepted the camp hosts and they issued us special Rapid Access ID cards. The next day they let us go back to the campgrounds. Whoopee! The road was still closed to the public and we couldn’t take any guests yet, but we were back in our summer home.
This is where the fire started and continued over the top of the ridge toward Hwy 160. You can see how close the fire came to the campgrounds.
Since we had the campgrounds to ourselves, we threw a 4th of July Bar-B-Que. The campground wasn’t burned at all, and the facilities were fine. The fire came closer than we thought, but it did not cross the boundary. We were very lucky. There were a lot of cancellations for the 4th of July week, but we are now back up to full capacity and it is still a great place to spend the summer.
The morning we got our trailer out there was a line of fire fighters walking in single file to cut that fire line.
They have not identified the reason the house caught on fire, but it was very suspicious. Since the house was destroyed and the fire was so hot, the fire investigators couldn’t find the fire’s cause. As for our interesting neighbor … she wasn’t at home when the fire started, but she did check into the evacuation shelter, so she’s homeless but otherwise ok.
