Email from Roger, the Walker Fire Chief:

Walker Fire attended a second meeting at 1600 for the Cellar Fire. The purpose was to transition from the Type 3 Incident Management Team (IMT) to a Type 1 IMT–this represents an escalation in response.

The first image (Link Below) is the same view point as last night and you can see far less activity today, more of a haze than that churning dark stuff yesterday.

https://walkerfire.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Cellar_1.png

Today was a good day in terms of operational effectiveness. They made good progress getting around the top corner of the fire from the NW flank […]

We attended a briefing today at noon and got some information.

There was not a ton of information and we’ve been asked to go back for another briefing at 4pm. We were told the fire is at 6500 acres.

The blow up we saw yesterday was caused by erratic weather conditions.

The smoke right now appears to be more of a white-ish haze, not the churning darker smoke we saw yesterday. We should hope that the current haze persists.

The fire is in a lower and hotter location than Walker and today’s weather in Walker is good–cooler and more humid […]

Contact(s): Debbie Maneely: (928) 499-4736

Fire Information (928) 925-1111 8:00 am – 8:00 pm

Location: 16 miles south of Prescott, AZ on the Bradshaw Ranger District (T10N, R2W, S5)
Start Date: July 14th
Size: Approximately 7,000 acres
Percent Contained: 0
Cause: Lightning
Vegetation: Grass and Brush
Resources Assigned: Air Attack, 2 – Airtankers, 3 – Helicopters, 6 – Hot Shot Crews, 2 – Dozers, 6 – Engines

The Cellar Fire is burning in grass and brush, but moving east/northeast into ponderosa pine west of Senator Highway (FR 52). It is being managed as […]

Contact(s): Debbie Maneely, (928) 443-8130

Fire Information (928) 925-1111 8:00 am – 8:00 pm

Location: 16 miles south of Prescott, AZ on the Bradshaw Ranger District (T10N, R2W, S5)
Start Date: July 14th
Size: Approximately 1,000 acres
Percent Contained: 0
Cause: Lightning
Vegetation: Grass and Brush
Resources Assigned: Air Attack, 2 – Airtankers, 1 – Type 1 Helicopter, 4 – Hot Shot Crews, 2 – Dozers, Multiple Engines and Water Tenders

Crews focused suppression efforts on both the north and west flanks of the fire today, constructing dozer and hand line. Burnout […]

Roger posted in the Walker Fire group:

Regarding the smoke southeast of here; that is the Cellar Fire which is burning (and putting up a ton of smoke) six miles east of Crown King. Crown King is 30 miles south of Walker and a little to the east and the fire itself is even further to the east. The attached weather shows that for the Cellar Fire to be an issue for us, it would have to go for more than 30 miles, up and down many hills and against the prevailing wind. Anything is possible with a wildfire but […]

Fire Service Says:

Lightning Strikes Keep Firefighters Busy Chasing Smoke Reports

Contact(s): Debbie Maneely: 928-443-8130

As monsoon thunderstorms crossed portions of the Prescott National Forest this afternoon, firefighters have been busy chasing smoke reports across the forest.

The 100 acre Castle Creek Fire is burning approximately 6 miles east of the community of Crown King in the Castle Creek Wilderness (T10N, R1E, S27). The fire’s location, conditions on the ground, and weather, including predicted monsoonal moisture is providing the opportunity to use this natural ignition to restore fire to the landscape and achieve multiple resource benefits; including improving […]

At 2:06pm on Sunday afternoon, there was a power outage in Walker.

It was restored about 6:10pm, so it lasted about 4 hours.

We have had a little rain for the last 4 days, with overcast skies.

Today we had some thunder and lightening along with the rain.

Rain was intermittent, but seemed to be the start of monsoon season.

Thankfully, the fire season is over.

APS said that their troubleshooting determined that the cause of the power outage was “severe weather”, which I take to mean something got hit by lightening.