Pocket Fire scorches over 20K acres near Sedona

SEDONA, AZ (AZFamily) — The evacuation status for some areas of northern Arizona has been adjusted as crews work to contain the Pocket Fire.

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The wildfire burning north of Sedona, which nearly quadrupled in size over the weekend, has grown by thousands more acres. As of Thursday, July 2, the wildfire scorched 20,680 acres west of Oak Creek Canyon and is 21% contained.

The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday afternoon that the areas of Kachina Village, Forest Highlands and Pine Del have been downgraded from SET status to READY status. The zones for those areas include 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98 and 99.

Oak Creek Canyon remains under SET status.

“While conditions have improved to allow this adjustment, residents will continue to see smoke and fire activity for the foreseeable future,” CCSO said in a social media post.

A public meeting will be held in Sedona at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 2, at Red Rock Junior and Senior High School, located off of Highway 89A and Upper Red Rock Loop Road. Authorities and fire crews will inform the public about the latest Pocket Fire activity and answer questions. The meeting will also be livestreamed on Coconino National Forest Facebook page.

Containment was established in some areas of the fire on Wednesday, but the fire remains active in the east and south.

“Because of the complexity of the landscape, the fire remains dynamic and is far from over,” fire officials said.

Fire officials said on Tuesday that strong winds carried embers up to a mile ahead of the flames, so crews conducted burnouts to remove fuel in targeted areas. Burnouts are a tactic firefighters say can slow the fire’s spread more quickly by using fuel, which would cause less damage to the landscape compared to dozers and hand tools.

SR 89A remains closed to everyone but area residents.

Almost a thousand people are fighting to contain the fire, but because of the dry vegetation, wind and steep terrain, it’s been an uphill battle.

“It’s challenging,” said Dick Fleishman, who’s with the U.S. Forest Service incident command team. “It’s probably one of the most challenging fires that almost every fire manager on this fire said this one is complex, one of the most complex.”

Smoke and ash affect Flagstaff

The weekend Red Flag warnings not only helped to fuel the flames, but also pushed the smoke to other areas across the High Country. A High Pollution Advisory (HPA) was in effect for the Flagstaff area on Tuesday.

Downtown Flagstaff was covered in a layer of smoke, and even ash Monday, after the Pocket Fire grew and winds pushed the smoke into town.

Heather Chapman was visiting Flagstaff from the Valley to escape the heat. She was met with smoke and ash instead.

“So we tried to do as much as we could,” Chapman said. “We went out to dinner Saturday night, and that’s when we saw the ash coming into our food and our drinks and all that.”

She said even with the smoke and high winds, they still had a good time, but it seemed emptier than usual.

“I feel like there’s less people, maybe because it is so smoky, but everything is still open,” Chapman said. “The weather is still absolutely beautiful.”

Downtown employees noticed a similar sentiment regarding tourism. Tyler Stickler is the owner of Grand Canyon Chocolate, which opened its Flagstaff storefront just seven months ago.

“It’s those couple of people from Phoenix that wanted to get away from the heat, but then they hear ‘there’s smoke in the air, fire, Flagstaff is burning down,’ all those scary things, and then they don’t show up,” he said.

Stickler said tourism is the backbone of downtown businesses, so when smoke scares tourists away, it hurts everyone.

“It does affect downtown, and I think just walking traffic, there’s some people that say, ‘I don’t want to go walk around in the smoke,’” Stickler said.

Michele Axlund is the director of Health and Human Services for Coconino County. She said vulnerable populations like the elderly, children or those who have an underlying condition should avoid the smoke as much as possible.

“It gets into our lungs and straight to our bloodstream,” Axlund said. “So this long-term effect of the smoke really is something we’re asking the public to take notice of.”

Stickler wants people to know that Flagstaff is open, and you can avoid the smoke by coming into shops like theirs.

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“It makes a big difference for all of us little businesses down here,” he said. “We’re happy to see every single person come in.”

Kachina Village residents pack belongings

Residents of Kachina Village spent Sunday packing valuables and preparing for a possible evacuation.

Resident Lexi Wahl focused on sentimental items — baby clothes, her grandpa’s camera, boxes of family photos — as she loaded belongings into a friend’s pickup truck.

“Monetary value, in that sense, doesn’t mean too much to me, but you leave one thing there and you’ll never see it again,” Wahl said.

Another resident, Shira Itogawa, described a methodical strategy for packing.

“Get the essentials, if you have time get a little bit more than the essentials, if you have time get a little bit more than that,” Itogawa said.

Itogawa said she is familiar with wildfire loss. Her home burned in the 2003 Cedar Fire in San Diego. She said the current situation brought back memories.

“It’s kind of flashing back on memories, I know the orange sky pretty well,” Itogawa said.

Despite the threat, Itogawa said she was taking a cautious but measured approach.

“I don’t expect us to actually burn, but I’d rather have stuff out and not burn than have all of it lost again,” she said.

Coconino County Officials ask residents to sign up for the county’s emergency notification system to receive the most up-to-date information on evacuation orders. Click here for more information.

Neighbors set up ‘thank you’ stand for crews

Kachina Village resident Michael Schafer set up a “thank you” stand to deliver the community’s appreciation directly to firefighters.

“I don’t know how to say thank you enough to them,” Schafer said. “It’s our attempt to try to let them know that they are seen and appreciated.”

Schafer placed the stand, complete with a poster board and markers, on the side of the road for community members to stop by and sign.

He said he planned to deliver the messages of gratitude, along with brownies, to crews on the front lines Monday.

Sedona sees dip in business

Even though they’re far from Flagstaff, residents in Sedona told Arizona’s Family that they’ve seen a drop in visitors because of the fire.

Viola’s Flower Garden, which sits on 89A, gets most of its business from people traveling on the road, manager Caitlin Ewart told Arizona’s Family.

Though they’ve remained open, business has been impacted since the fire started, as the road closure is preventing customers from driving up 89A, Ewart said.

Ewart, who said it rained ash from the fire in Sedona, worries about the smoke hurting their plants.

“The smoke does shade out some of the plants, so they’re not getting as much sunshine,” she explained. “It’s just the air quality is not good for the plants as well.”

Fleishman said this weekend will be a challenge, but believes it could improve next week.

“The reason why we’re not calling containment right now is because of this wind,” he said Saturday. “If we can get through these three days, you’ll probably start seeing some containment on this fire.”

Officials do not know the cause of the Pocket Fire, which started on June 19.

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