LOCAL FIREFIGHTER CONCERNED WITH FIRE DANGERS
By Harrison J. Bahe
Concerned community member and experienced Wildland Firefighter, Iyan Jolley, shared concerns about a potential wildfire like the ones in Los Angeles and San Carlos happening on the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. The devastating wildfires of Southern California ripped through Malibu and surrounding cities causing significant impacts. According to ABC News, 27 people have died, over 200,000 residents have been displaced, and over 12,000 structures have been destroyed. Readers may recall a similar incident on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, the Watch Fire. This too destroyed dozens of homes and displaced 75 people according to AZ Family News. Jolley shares, “The key issue that always ends up leading to these fires is fuel issues. Fuels being the light wispy grasses, invasive grasses, and ladder fuels.”
Countless plant materials can act as fuel, including grasses, shrubs, trees, dead leaves, and fallen pine needles. As these burnable materials pile up, this increases the likelihood of an extreme wildfire event. In the right conditions, excess fuel allows fires to burn hotter, larger, longer, and faster, making them more difficult and dangerous to manage. Drought and other climate factors are also increasing wildfire activity in many areas.
Jolley, who frequents the Verde River, is concerned about the number of fuels spread across the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. Jolley shares, “There are so many fuels [down there], I’m down at the river all the time, that’s my second home. As I’m learning more and more each season by doing wildland [fires], I just see more and more of an issue.” The concern Jolley shares is that the reservation is filled with flammable plant material that can act as fuel for a potential wildfire. Jolley went out to fight fires and saw similar landscapes he was attempting to save from the flames right here in Fort McDowell.
So, how can fuels be reduced? According to FMYN Fire Chief, Eddie Smith, fire departments deliberately start fires, or prescribe fires, under favorable conditions (so they can manage where and how the fire burns) to remove excess vegetation and other fuels, such as leaves, pine needles, and branches. If it is decided that FMYN allows safe and supervised “prescribed burns” by professional wildfire experts, then it is important this be conducted through the FMYN Burn Permit process that is overseen by our Environmental Department. Other ways to reduce fuels would be to thin forested areas with chainsaws or heavy equipment, removing brush and small trees by hand, reducing grasses and shrubs mechanically or through domestic grazing animals, like cows and goats, and chemically treating an area overgrown with invasive plants using herbicides. These actions would most likely need an approval from the Tribal Council. For Fort McDowell, this would be creating defensible spaces by making fire breaks throughout the community. There are houses close to the river that could be in danger should a wildfire breakout.
“Building a fire line and fire beaks around houses, taking down fire damaged or weakened trees by the river,” are a few suggestions from Jolley. These methods, if done on a large scale, should be both funded and supervised by the BIA and their vendors shares Chief Smith.
Does the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation have a dedicated fuels reduction force? The short answer is no. “We have a fire department but that’s not really their job to go and do fuels reduction.” Jolley shares. According to, National Park Service fuel treatment projects are carried out by staff in the four Department of the Interior bureaus with wildland fire management responsibilities: the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Staff in the Office of Wildland Fire help manage several interagency planning tools to support this work. The Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools Project (known as LANDFIRE) can provide detailed maps and data about vegetation and fuel types for the entire country so they can identify where work needs to be done. The Interagency Fuel Treatment Decision Support System can help plan and model the effects of a project by analyzing the effectiveness of past treatments and estimating future risk reduction. The National Fire Plan Operations and Reporting System can help track the work across public and Tribal lands.
Fire Chief Smith suggests looking at these devastating fires from three different vantage points. The first, “Prevention” phase, which is mitigating fuel loads prior to an event happening to keep fire from spreading rapidly. The fuel mitigation drastically helps with fire suppression efforts on the front end of the incident. It is important to note that homeowners can “help themselves” by clearing brush and debris from at least a 10-foot defensible space surrounding their homes.
The second vantage point is the “Fire Suppression” phase, which is containing the fire, so it no longer spreads and then putting it out. The primary responsibility of the Fort McDowell Fire Department is the Initial Attack on the fire while they wait for the BIA, the Tonto National Forest and other resources to come and assist. The high winds that occurred in California are uncommon here, however, we recently had wind gusts up to 40 MPH here on the reservation. High winds increase dire spread exponentially. The better fuel mitigation prior to the incident, the easier it will be to suppress and control the fire.
The third vantage point is the “Emergency Management” phase which is what to do with displaced citizens and animals that have been evacuated because of the fire. The Fort McDowell Fire Department has an Emergency Management Plan in place if the need were to ever arise. The Emergency Manager is in constant contact with County, State and Federal Emergency Management agencies that are there to quickly help if FMYN were to suffer a catastrophe.
Fort McDowell has had its fair share of close calls with wildfires. Memories of distant orange flames devastating the hills beyond our borders and the scent of smoke permeating the morning air come to mind. It is only a matter of time before a wildfire hits us hard. Residents of Los Angeles and San Carlos thought they were safe from such natural disasters only to find out that they were just as vulnerable as any other person. The Fort McDowell Fire Department agrees with Jolley. The best way to protect your home from wildfires is to put into place proper preventative measures through fuel mitigation on the front end. We are not impervious to wildfires and Wildland Firefighter, Iyan Jolley, as a concerned community member of Fort McDowell, wishes to inform the reservation of the very real dangers wildfires pose to us. “It gets me worried because I have elderly friends and people in my family just like everyone else who are not capable of getting up to save themselves if they find out [a fire] is in [their] backyard. It’s one of those things that, if you don’t take care of it now, it’s going to be too big of an issue later.” Jolley concludes.
Thank you, Iyan Jolley, and FMYN Fire Chief, Eddie Smith, for sharing your informative insights on wildland fire safety.