To breathe a sigh of relief at the end of Mother Nature’s wrath on us here in northern Arizona after this winter’s big snowstorm and this spring’s floods for days that rivaled the floods of 2004. Thank you.

The recent blizzards have certainly been big, and while first-time visitors to Sedona might think they’ve broken records, Sedona recently recorded bigger blizzards in 2018 and has seen more snowfall in other years. It’s unusual for us to have a city closed after a heavy snowfall, followed by a hot day, causing another traffic jam.

This week’s flooding was also severe, but the flooding in December 2004 was more than that, when authorities cut off traffic on the old bridge (the new bridge was built about 12 years ago) on State Route 179 near Tlaquepaque. I was forced to cut it off temporarily. home on the creek.

After a snowy winter and a rainy spring, spring break, which should have ended in April, arrives just by dealing with the man-made disasters of tourist season.

According to the federal U.S. Drought Monitor, the recent thaw and heavy rains have only helped lift Yavapai County officially out of the drought. Our climate is currently designated as ‘extremely dry’.

All of this continued humidity means that the greenbelts between our communities and the foliage around our homes will bloom and bloom massively in the coming weeks and months. That’s great for hikers and photographers, but not so great for people with allergies.

As the tourist season ends and children and young people across the country graduate from school and college in May, we enter fire season. Our wet landscape may reduce the severity of fires here in the desert, but increased foliage makes fires more common and more likely to spread.

There is nothing you can do to stop lightning-triggered woodland fires or the occasional inter-county power line down after a storm, but to fight them when they threaten homes and communities. we can take action now. We have removed the defensible space around our homes on our property, making the ability to jump from one side of the road to the other or from one property to another potential in the event of a fire nearby. It can protect you from fire.

The U.S. Forest Service has consolidated camps west of Sedona and east of Cottonwood into just a handful of sites, making fires less likely to be started by tourists and local campers who don’t properly extinguish their campfires. increase.

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If you go camping and put out a campfire, remember that if the ash is still hot to the touch, the fire is too hot to leave. Leave it alone, pour more water or sand, and wait until you can safely touch the rest with your bare hands.

That said, wildfires rarely occur in safe, legal, and regularly used campgrounds. Rather, they often start at secret campsites that have been illegally built in places they shouldn’t be, or deliberately hidden from the beaten path. It has not been cleared by campground managers, or other previous recreational activists, and may be hastily abandoned.

This may have contributed to the 4,317-acre Brillins fire in 2006 on Brillins Mesa. The bare trees atop Mount Wilson can be seen even from Uptown.

Most wildfires are man-made, so we should all exercise caution, properly extinguish campfires and barbecues, avoid using free-spraying sparks, and smoke in open woodlands. You should refrain from smoking marijuana and be on the lookout for tourists who may not. know the rules. Be gentle but firm when explaining to travelers why you shouldn’t splatter cigarette butts or throw smoldering fires away.

For further guidance on how to create defensible spaces around your home, contact your local fire department and ask a firefighter or firefighter to walk with you.

Thanks to this rain, we will have one of the greenest springs and summers in recent memory. Keep it green.

Christopher Fox Graham

Editor-in-chief