tunnel fire

Powerful thunderstorms caused widespread flooding across Flagstaff Wednesday. Highway 180 was temporarily closed due to flooding across the road coming from the recent Pipeline Fire scar. Emergency sirens were activated in east Flagstaff for areas below the Museum Fire scar.

The City of Flagstaff has declared a State of Emergency due to the impacts of monsoon flooding in areas affected by this summer’s Pipeline Fire. The Coconino Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the immediate transfer of $5 million from the General Fund’s emergency reserve to the County’s Flood Control District to address the ongoing costs of flood response and mitigation.

The Coconino National Forest is evaluating a proposal that would remove more than 1,600 dead and dying trees along Highway 89 in the burn areas of the recent Pipeline and Tunnel Fires.

In this month's Canyon Commentary, Scott Thybony retells a story from 20 years ago about the importance of honoring sacred spaces and the ceremony of restoring order to the natural world.

The Coconino County Flood Control district will hold a meeting this Thursday, July 14, 2022, to discuss flood mitigation in Flagstaff’s Doney Park neighborhood. The meeting starts at 6:30. p.m. at the Cromer Elementary School gym.

Coconino County’s Flood Control District is making an urgent request for volunteers to help fill and place sandbags in neighborhoods below recent wildfires to mitigate the threat of post-fire flooding.

Coconino County officials have released guidelines regarding flood preparedness and mitigation efforts by the County Flood Control District for areas impacted by the Pipeline and Haywire Fires.

Officials with the Coconino National Forest say they’ve reduced the size of the closure area for the Tunnel Fire northeast of Flagstaff. The move is meant to allow for increased access and recreation in Lockett Meadow and the inner basin via Forest Road 552.

Two small areas of the Tunnel Fire near Flagstaff reignited over the weekend. Strong winds fanned flames in the higher-elevation cinder cones area through unburned fuel within the fire’s perimeter creating visible smoke.

Until last month, the most recent major wildfires to impact the Flagstaff area had miraculously spared homes. The 2010 Schultz Fire and the Museum Fire in 2019 burned a combined 17,000 acres almost exclusively on national forest land north of the city. That all changed with the wind-driven Tunnel Fire last month, which burned 30 homes in the Timberline area. On yet another recent gusty day, Coconino County Deputy Manager Lucinda Andreani showed KNAU’s Ryan Heinsius one home in a wooded area that was destroyed by the Tunnel Fire, and spoke about where residents, many of whom lost everything, go from here.