Images From the 2003 AZ Wildfires
click on thumbnail for a larger image
It has been very difficult to watch my favorite mountains burn - I have been up there but once in the last 13 years, and I disliked it the last time I was there. It was noisy with many stereos and cars/trucks, so I left after less than an hour out of frustration. I had gone up there to enjoy the serenity of being in nature, and the 15-20 degree temperature difference from the hot and dusty valley. I truly wish I had enjoyed my last visit to the Catalina Mountains. Now I am focusing on finding the beauty in the devastation, and the hope that this will be the opportunity for new growth as well as the end of some of the things that have been damaging these magnificent mountains. It seems to be the only thing I can do. Dave has been hit really hard by all this. He is an avid hiker, and he loved hiking in the Catalinas. Every time a new section of the mountains becomes engulfed in flames, he tells me of when he hiked there and how much he loved it. The day I write this, 25% of the entire mountain range has burned due to the maliciousness or carelessness of a human or humans. The weather has fed this fire to obesity with high winds, high temperatures, and dry air. My feeling is that this monsoon season will drastically effect the geography of the mountains and surrounding areas (the degree of change depending on the intensity of the monsoon). With the large amount of [now] barely forested areas and the heavy downpours that the monsoon brings, erosion is going to be a major issue. I have been envisioning large sections of the mountains liquefying and filling up washes/arroyos, rivers, and burying the surrounding communities. I see it changing the flood planes and the shape of the mountains drastically. This is truly going to be a sight to behold. I had a dream about 8 years ago of a very large tornado dancing up and down the side of the Rincons, and with this tornado came major flooding throughout the city of Tucson. The flooding essentially erased entire sections of the city, and after it was over, I did not recognize anything. This is very similar to what I see happening over the next 2 months.
The Helens 2 fire in the Rincon Mountains - the range to the SE of the Catalinas- is hard on me too. Thankfully, it has not destroyed as much as the Aspen Fire. We lost the Mexican Spotted Owl Habitat and quite a bit of land. I went camping there frequently the last two years before moving to TX in a place called Happy Valley. I have no idea what condition it is in, I can only hope it survived.
The majority of the photographs I took have not been developed yet, but Dave and I both took pictures with his digital camera. Those are the pictures here, and they are in chronological order for the most part. I will update this page regularly, and add the other photos as soon as I can.
July 11, the fire is essentially over, being 85% contained...it burned over 84,000 acres
The Rincons |
