Shower Power

As I type, the smell of approaching rain is drifting through my open window. It’s 4:00 p.m. and the clouds have been building all afternoon after a starry night, and muggy morning. Must be time for the Arizona monsoon! A meteorologist I’m not, but you can learn all about this seasonal shift in prevailing winds and welcome rains by following this link http://geography.asu.edu/aztc/monsoon.html#monsoon.

In northern Arizona, the monsoon season arrived on the Fourth of July weekend—a full three weeks early with history as a guide. It was not a moment too soon, as the much-feared wildfire season of 2006 was just starting to erupt in the tinderbox forests of the region. After our dry-as-a-bone winter, we locals braced for catastrophic wildfires that promised to scorch huge tracts of forested highlands. To be sure, a few have broken out. Just ask the relieved residents of Sedona who survived the fast-moving Brins Fire which was eventually contained by a few hundred firefighters at great expense.

We’re not…ahem…out of the woods yet, but the sporadic afternoon “soakers” may just get us through another year without too many coniferous casualties. Keep your fingers crossed, and, if you’re headed to the Canyon anytime soon, have your rain slicker handy.

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Return of the Web Cam

Grand Canyon National Park's web cam is back! The camera atop the historic Yavapai Observation Station on Grand Canyon's South Rim was out of service for several months while the park service began a series of interior renovations. As a result, Canyon junkies far and wide were deprived of their daily (hourly?) fix when the lights went out. Temporarily gone were the days when my web-surfing friends around the country would alert me, a local, to the Canyon's dramatic cloud play, pooling fog, or approaching storms. The dramatic image to the west refreshes several times an hour, and is just one more way for Canyon enthusiasts to stay connected to their favorite chasm. You can access the web cam from our homepage, or by clicking here: http://www2.nature.nps.gov/air/webcams/parks/grcacam/grcacam.cfm

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Wildfire Prompts Evacuations on North Rim

A massive wildfire forced the closure and evacuation of the North Rim in Grand Canyon National Park. The lightning sparked blaze, dubbed the “Warm Fire”, charred approximately 60,000 acres of the Kaibab National Forest before being fully contained by firefighters on July 6.

Although the fire failed to reach the boundary of Grand Canyon National Park, it burned along the only road (Highway 67) that provides access to the lodges, trailheads and scenic overlooks of the North Rim proper. Visitors and employees alike were escorted to safety via motor caravans through ominous clouds of smoke by National Park Service, National Forest Service, and Arizona Department of Public Safety personnel. At one point, a shift in the wind even shrouded the distant South Rim in smoke and ash. The South Rim remained open throughout the ordeal.

The cost of fighting the blaze is expected to exceed $7 million dollars. Now that the closure has been lifted, visitors to the North Rim will be confronted with a stark reminder of the dangers of wildland fires in the form of an eighteen mile stretch of highway with everything in sight having been burned to a crisp.

Many experts agree that such a conflagration was long overdue on the Kaibab Plateau where a century of fire suppression has had the unintended effect of creating an overgrown forest that is vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires. The good news is that fire is an integral part of forest ecology, and even the areas affected by this recent event will undoubtedly be restored naturally in the coming decades.

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