Twelve years ago, this was a summer of anxiety for Flagstaff. Wildfires in Continental, Christmas Tree Estates, McMillan Mesa and Herold Ranch Road had prompted evacuations and burned at least 500 acres in the city. Then the largest wildfires ever recorded on the Coconino National Forest sprang up north of Flagstaff, with the Hochderffer fire that began June 20, 1996.

The Hochderffer and Horseshoe fires near Kendrick Peak sent up gigantic columns of smoke and severely burned about 40 square miles of land. "I felt a palpable sense of panic on the part of the community," said Jim Wheeler, now assistant chief of Flagstaff Fire Department. "My office was getting phone calls all the time about 'Should we evacuate the community of Flagstaff?'"

Twelve years, much has improved, say those who manage the Coconino National Forest. Now, in all but a few of the worst weather scenarios, a severe wildfire could be stopped before it burned into Flagstaff, say fire and land managers. The forest in the most vulnerable southwestern part of town has been largely thinned, creating a connection of buffers two to three miles wide. Inside town, 10,000 out of 17,000 acres of public forested land has been thinned, and owners of 700 properties have been directed to clean up. And at least nine neighborhoods in and near town have become very serious about thinning trees and taking other measures to counter wildfires. Fire-resistant construction is now a norm and a requirement.

"I think we've probably treated the urban interface of Flagstaff to the point that we shouldn't ever see a Rodeo-Chediski here," said Alvin Brown, a former silviculturist who plans thinning projects for the Coconino National Forest. He was a firefighter during the Hochderffer fire of 1996.

HISTORY OF OVERGROWTH

In the late 1990s, Flagstaff was rated as the most wildfire-prone community in the state. Commercial sheep grazing that began in the 1860s helped promote the growth of abnormally dense forests. Sheep and cattle chewed down the grass, making way for a 1919 explosion of pine seedlings. Typically, many of the seedlings might have died in grass fires, but this was the century of fire suppression. "This ecosystem used to be 95 percent grass and 5 percent trees," said Wheeler. "Now it's 95 percent trees and 5 percent grass."

The landscape went from 40 to 60 trees per acre before it was settled, to more than 2,000, according to the Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership. Small and frequent grass fires on the ground were replaced by crown fires in the treetops, which are more destructive and spread more quickly. There was no history of these crown fires burning 500 acres or more on the Colorado Plateau in the 400 to 500 years before European arrival, wrote Wally Covington, director of Northern Arizona University's Ecological Restoration Institute.

Now, these fires are routine and on the increase. More acres of the Coconino National Forest burned in wildfires in the 1990s than in any decade on record.

FOREST THINNING WORK ONGOING

Fort Valley, Kachina Village, Mormon Lake, Pinewood, Blue Ridge and Flagstaff have seen thinning in the area where the neighborhoods meet the forest. While these boundary areas are getting special attention for the wildfire risks the forest poses, the budget of the Coconino National Forest does not allow for large-scale thinning and prescribed burning to improve the health of the whole forest. There is a bottleneck in getting a stand of forest surveyed, analyzed for environmental impacts, then put up for bid to be thinned -- even though all of the thinning projects the Coconino has had in the last four or five years have sold. At today's rate, it would take a century to thin the 600,000 acres of ponderosa pine here that aren't put off-limits by topography, wilderness or other factors, according to figures from Kim Newbauer, who sells thinning contracts on the Coconino National Forest. But the forest near individual communities is in better shape.

Thinning and burning around Flagstaff is 29 percent complete, at 52 square miles thinned. Work on the forest cost about $15 million over the last decade, Brown said. This thinning inside the city cost about $1 million. There is more work to be done in east Flagstaff and Continental, said Steve Gatewood, former director of the Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership. Though there had been logging previously, the partnership formed after the 1996 fires to focus on wildfire threat to Flagstaff by building a buffer zone around the city.

"It's safe to say that there was not very much treatment done at all" previously, he said. Environmental groups such as The Nature Conservancy and Grand Canyon Trust, loggers and government employees were all involved. While there have sometimes been disputes about what size of trees to log and how many, none of the projects have been litigated to date, Gatewood said. The last project, which includes Schultz Pass, is now up for environmental review. Having accomplished its goals, the forest partnership is now staffed by volunteers only.

Firefighters point to the 2006 Woody fire along Woody Mountain Road as proof of success, said Paul Summerfelt, a fuel management officer for the Flagstaff Fire Department. That fire hit two areas thinned previously and was stopped before it could burn up to Lowell Observatory and into Coconino Estates, or torch some tinderbox mobile homes just across the road. Between public education, the amount of thinning, mapping and prescribed burning done and the upcoming work planned, he says Flagstaff is an example for other mountain towns. "We are, without question, probably the most successful community in addressing the issue of any at-risk community in the country," Summerfelt said.

Cyndy Cole can be reached at 913-8607 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

By the numbers

For more information on the Forest Landscape Restoration Act, visit: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-2593.