Wildfire Halted at City’s Edge

PRESCOTT, Ariz. —  A tempestuous fire feeding on dry ponderosa pines was pushed back just outside the city’s edge Thursday night after destroying five upscale homes, yet another signal that the Western drought has created precarious conditions for homeowners and firefighters.

“Heavy fuels are quite terribly dry, and all you need is an ignition source,” said Mary Zabinski, a fire information officer for the Southwest Interagency Coordination Center in Albuquerque.

The cause of the 1,000-acre fire here is unknown, but investigators have ruled out natural sources.

So far this year, 1,881 fires have burned more than 190,000 acres across the West, where a dozen fires are burning. Arizona, which is battling two other fires, is experiencing its most severe drought in 105 years. Arizona’s governor, Jane Dee Hull, like many of her Western counterparts, weeks ago declared a drought emergency and is seeking federal funds to aid farmers and ranchers.

The fire threatened more than 2,000 homes here that stand among towering, tinder-dry pine trees that officials worried would be easily ignited by blowing embers. By Thursday night, the blaze was 45% contained and 1,150 firefighters were positioned to battle it today.

Zabinski and others said the fire danger was exacerbated by former urban dwellers or absentee owners who build near a forest and don’t understand the importance of clearing brush and other vegetation from around their homes.

Charlie Cook, the local county fire marshal, agreed. “The common thread among the homes that burned was that they didn’t have defensible space around them. People move into the urban interface into the pine trees and don’t want to cut down trees. We have to educate them on that--and to not use combustible building materials.”

For years, city and county officials have discussed changing building codes to require that homes in wooded neighborhoods be constructed of materials that are more fire-resistant. This fire, they said, brings a new sense of urgency to their plans.

New building codes won’t affect houses already constructed in this popular, mile-high community 96 miles north of Phoenix, but would address new construction in a county that has seen its population explode by about 60% in 10 years. During the same period, Prescott grew to about 34,000 from 26,500.

Prescott is especially popular among onetime city folk who either moved directly here or to cities such as Phoenix and, unwilling to bear oppressively hot summers, have sought the refuge of Prescott’s more moderate climate.

Here in Arizona’s best-preserved town, they find more than 500 buildings on the National Registry of Historic Buildings, sharing a quaint downtown of restaurants, taverns, boutiques, antique stores, art galleries and Victorian homes.

Much of Prescott is in mostly treeless flatlands, but its southwestern corner--which was in the fire’s path and is nestled beneath 100-foot-high pine trees--which has become an increasingly attractive home site.

The custom homes that burned Wednesday were in the hilly, contemporary Cathedral Pines subdivision, and are valued at between $350,000 and $750,000 or more. Some burned so cleanly to their foundations, fire investigators were hard-pressed to describe their type of construction. Other homes, which had 30 feet or more of vegetation clearance, escaped damage.

The fire started in a campground Wednesday afternoon and swept through four miles of forest in a matter of hours, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,500 people in its path. It was stopped three miles from downtown.

Hand crews worked feverishly to clear brush around its perimeter. Thursday evening, feared winds had failed to materialize, and fire bosses said they had gained the upper hand.

Barry Humbert, who spent 30 years as a fire management officer for the U.S. Forest Service in Southern California and here before becoming a local real estate agent, has watched Prescott’s growth push housing construction into the forest.

“The lands adjacent to the national forest are highly desirable--they’ve got a big backyard with great views,” he said Thursday. “But it’s a high-risk area, and this is the fire that I’ve been concerned would occur.”

Many are loath to remove the towering trees that shade their homes--and say this fire won’t cause them to reconsider.

“We know the danger--but we know the beauty too,” said Mary Lee Aguilar, 81, who moved here 12 years ago from Whittier with her husband, Joseph.

As the fire marched toward their subdivision, Timber Woods, they evacuated with their neighbors and spent Wednesday night on a cot at the high school, along with scores of others after every available motel room in town was quickly booked by locals.

On Thursday, they moved into a vacated motel room, eager to return home in a few days.

“We had cleared out the pine needles and pine cones and the brush,” she said, “but we’ve got tall, beautiful pine trees 6 feet from our wall, and I can’t give them up. If I did, I might as well move back to Whittier.”

Times staff writer Julie Cart in Denver contributed to this report.