By Bob Burns
Mail

It was a Friday afternoon in July 1995 and a typical monsoon pattern was moving across the North Scottsdale area when a dry lightning strike hit near 128th Street and Dynamite Boulevard (Rio Verde Drive).

The monsoon winds blew the blaze quickly out of control and before the weekend was over the Rio Fire had charred more than 23,000 acres across McDowell Mountain Park and right to the boundary with Fountain Hills. Fortunately, few structures were lost,  and there were no injuries.

Fountain Hills Fire Chief Dave Ott was a firefighter with Rural/Metro and responded to the fire. He recalls going door-to-door with law enforcement to warn residents and urging them to evacuate. It was the only way to reach people threatened by wildfire at the time. Ott credited former Fountain Hills Rural/Metro chiefs, the late Scott LaGreca and Randy Roberts for laying the groundwork for emergency preparedness after the Rio Fire.

Town Councilman Allen Skillicorn was alarmed by reports related to the fire that burned through the island of Maui, Hawaii, in August this year destroying the city of Lahaina. Following reports of a lack of preparedness and poor communication in Hawaii, Skillicorn asked for an emergency plan update from Chief Ott.

Ott told the council that it is important to remember that Fountain Hills is not like Maui or Lahaina, or Paradise, Calif., which suffered a devastating wildfire in 2018. He pointed out that while Fountain Hills does have a wildland interface with the desert, that is quite different than what occurs in forested areas.

Desert fuel loads are sparser, and it is relatively easy to create defensive fire space around structures and even whole communities. Clearing “ladder fuels” prevents dry flash fuels from burning into heavier vegetation of bushes and trees.

Technology has advanced significantly since 1995, and although there will still be occasions when some door-to-door notifications are necessary the digital age makes it much more efficient. Ott said Fountain Hills uses the Code Red notification system which will send alerts directly to a person’s smart phone if there is a potential emergency imminent. This can range from fire, flood or even law enforcement situations.

The system is opt-in requiring people to sign up for the program. Information can be found about the app by searching “code red.”

Ott said that with the desert wildland interface of Fountain Hills it is often better to simply “shelter in place” rather than try to evacuate, particularly if steps have been taken by the homeowner to create the defensible space around the property.

Fountain Hills has also adopted the Emergency Operations Plan encompassing the entire county and region. This plan is a coordination between various emergency agencies including local, county state and even federal response programs. The county and other partners provide a lot of ability to cover many emergency operations, coordination and communications, according to Ott.

There are also community wildfire protection programs and focus on disaster prevention. Firewise, a program of the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA). This is a program that relies on keeping defensible space clean around properties and is often used by smaller neighborhoods with HOAs, but communities as large as Rio Verde and Tonto Verde are Firewise Communities. They adopted the program following the threat posed by the Rio Fire.