'We got this': Firefighters battling Black Fire work to protect Tonto National Monument

Authorities warned on Tuesday that the Black Fire, which has scorched nearly 9,000 acres of forest near Theodore Roosevelt Lake, threatens to destroy the Tonto National Monument.

It’s an important landmark that National Park Service and Forest Service officials are fighting to protect as fire crews continued extinguishing the blaze just south of the lake, on the edge of the Superstition Wilderness.

“It’s one of the top 10 parks of importance throughout the United States, throughout the park service system,” said Mike Reichling, public information officer for the Arizona Central West Zone Type Three Incident Management Team.

“Lots of people come here, visitors throughout the years, especially when the wildflowers are blooming,” he continued from the parking lot of the monument’s visitors center, which remained closed Tuesday afternoon.

There, he pointed up to the pair of 700-year-old cliff dwellings that previously housed the ancestral tribes of the Apache, Pima-Maricopa and Yavapai.

When open, the center showcases the pottery, woven cloths and other artifacts tribes used.

Those items, Reichling said, are safe as they’ve been temporarily relocated to a repository in Tucson.

On Monday, firefighters worked to protect the monument area and structures from the fire spreading rapidly to the east within the Tonto National Forest. A mountain just west of the monument area currently shields the structures.

“We're very concerned about the fire getting over the mountain right here to the rest of us and getting on this property,” Reichling said.

Along with the monument, Reichling added, the fire poses additional risks to Salt River Project powerlines in the area and wildlife like tortoises and deer.

“So having those priorities helps us identify what we're going to protect first, and this is one of the first priorities for us to protect, this land,” he said.

The Black Fire was ignited last Thursday when lighting struck the area. It’s the latest in a string of wildfires to burn the Tonto National Forest this wildfire season.

So far this year, about 37,850 acres of the Tonto National Forest have been burned because of wildfires. Nearly 80 of the fires have resulted from human activity while 19 were started from natural causes.

Wildfire map: Track where fires are burning in Arizona in 2024

Store workers offer relief to firefighters, locals

For the cashiers at the local convenience store off State Route 188, this hasn’t been their "first rodeo."

“That's why we're still open, we sell water and ice to the firemen,” Daniel Avila said behind the counter of the Spring Creek Store, located about two hours east of downtown Phoenix. “And they appreciate us being open to give them their needs.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, firefighters hadn’t yet contained any part of the blaze, which burned 8,679 acres of the forest.

The fire prompted evacuation orders for various areas and communities like the national monument. Other areas under orders include Black Brush Ranch, Cross-P Ranch, Reevis Mountain School, Cottonwood Cove Picnic Area, Frazier, Windy Hill, Schoolhouse and Grapevine campgrounds.

The Quail Run, Lakeview Mobile Home Park and Roosevelt Lake Marina and RV Park communities remained under the state’s “set” orders, meaning people in those areas should stay alert and be ready to evacuate if officials send out a “go” notice.

Though the Roosevelt Post Office was under a pre-evacuation order, it temporarily relocated services to the Tonto Basin Post Office on Tuesday.

Boat ramps at Cholla and Windy Hill are open, while roads and trails within Tonto Basin, Globe and Mesa Ranger Districts were closed, according to the National Forest Service.

As fire crews have responded to incidents around the forest, Creek Store clerks Avila and Karol Baird have become unlikely sources of information and comfort.

“The firefighters come in and we offer as much as we can for them and I think they're well taken care of,” Baird said. “But yeah, people come in and ask if we've heard anything, and we just kind of pass on information.”

Baird, a schoolteacher in the Valley who lives and works in Roosevelt during the summer, said the store also gets calls from those who own vacation homes and are worried about whether their properties are at risk.

When fielding questions about ongoing fires, Baird said she encourages people to download the Watch Duty app on their phones, where they can get real-time updates.

Avila, a pastor who’s no stranger to providing comfort during crises, credited the firefighters for sharing information with him and Baird.

“The firefighters, they do an amazing job coming in, keeping us informed and we keep people informed who ask,” he said.

It was the work of the firefighters and their information that kept Avila calm during the Woodbury Fire in June 2019, when more than 120,000 acres of the Superstition Wilderness had burned.

“That was my first rodeo,” Avila recalled. “At first it was scary, but their information they fed us and “Ready, Set, Go,” it kept us calm and each time we have a fire it's like ‘we got this, they got this.’”

'It's been super dry': Locals, crews hope for rain

Weeks before the latest fire, the Bobcat Fire scorched about 73 acres of a nearby area in the Tonto National Forest.

“I feel like that one was nipped in the bud quickly,” Baird said. “It also helped that we had rain. We haven't had any rain. Just winds. It's been super dry.”

Firefighters battling the Black Fire were expected to contend with 20- to 25-mph winds Tuesday, according to the Incident Management Team.

A thunderstorm was also anticipated to roll in by the afternoon, bringing rain and lighting.

Avila remembered working the store the night the fire started. He was trying to capture photos of the lightning striking the ground.

“After work, I got out, it was about 8:30 (p.m.), I can see two orange lights out there that I knew was fire,” he said, noting that he didn’t capture the lightning strike that sparked the fire. “The next day, you could just see it gradually getting worse and worse.”

Shawn Raymundo covers the West Valley cities of Glendale, Peoria and Surprise. Reach him at sraymundo@gannett.com or follow him on X @ShawnzyTsunami.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Black Fire threatens Tonto National Monument