We live about 60 miles away from where the Wallow fire is currently burning in Arizona. We can see smoke plumes and sometimes smell it from where we are. It is the largest wildfire in the history of Arizona at 478,000 acres, which was reported at about 10am this morning, so most likely it is much larger. I have never been so near to an active wildfire, and it's a little scary. Lots of the people I work with went through the Rodeo-Chediski fire in 2002 (that was previously the largest wildfire in AZ until the Wallow fire). They said it was one of the worst experiences, just thinking that you'd have to pack up what you can and leave not knowing if you'd have a home to come back to.
I wanted to share one of the photos that really moved me, it's of a "Hot Shot" crew moving to their next destination within the fire. They must be able to hike 3 miles with 45 pounds of equipment in 45 minutes. This photo came from our local news paper the White Mountain Independent.
I took a couple photos of the smoke from the fire over a week ago. The first photo is the plume seen when driving into town. The second photo is taken from the Show Low Days festival. It's a little scary to think that you can see the smoke from 60 miles away that well!
The last thing I will post is a map of the fire progression since the start. ABC 15 showed an overlay of the map on top of the Phoenix area and it pretty much covers the entire Phoenix metro area. This map is from inciweb where you can follow the progression of the fire. Note: inciweb has been down recently due to high traffic to the site.
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