Recreation areas in the Coronado National Forest won't be reopening any time soon, and some campgrounds, roads and trails could be closed for a year or more after expected damage from flooding and debris flows on the 360,000 acres of forest burned in Southern Arizona this year.
Coronado Forest Supervisor Jim Upchurch said at a news conference Thursday that the agency fielded numerous calls Monday about the possibility of ending forest closures now that the rain has arrived.
Upchurch said the rain, while welcome, wasn't enough. "It hasn't significantly changed the fuels condition at this point, particularly the big trees."
"Fuels" - the grasses, trees and shrubs in the forest - remain at historically low moisture levels. Across the Coronado, grasses retain less than 2 percent moisture and the shrubs and trees less than 5 percent.
Any improvement from rains that fell overnight Wednesday will quickly evaporate in the high temperatures predicted for the next few days, said Ken Drozd, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Tucson.
Upchurch said the closure of the entire 1.78 million acres of Sky Island forests in the Coronado has kept the number of fire starts down.
The monsoon, while bringing welcome rain, now brings a new ignition source in the form of lightning, he said.
And it brings a flood threat, he said, especially in areas near the Chiricahua and Huachuca mountains where fires still burn, though the Horseshoe 2 Fire is now contained and the Monument Fire is nearing containment.
Soil is already moving on those watersheds, said Marc Stamer, co-leader of the Burned Area Emergency Response team that has just completed assessments of the two fires.
Heavier rains could bring the kind of debris flows that send a cement-like slurry of soil and ash downstream, carrying boulders that can be as large as an automobile, Stamer said.
Not all of the acreage burned this year will have the same flood risk, he said.
The team's report on the 68,078-acre Murphy Fire west of Tubac showed that only 3 percent of the soil there burned severely enough to reject moisture.
On the 222,954-acre Horseshoe 2 Fire, 12 percent of the soil is in that severe category. Analysis of the more recent 30,526-acre Monument Fire outside Sierra Vista is not completed.
Upchurch said some emergency preparation for flooding is already done. "We recognize we need to get in there quickly," he said.
Other work will have longer-term benefits, he said.
Nothing can really prevent the initial erosion that follows a fire, said Stamer and Upchurch.
That could leave some areas of the forest closed "for a year or longer until that threat of soil movement has been reduced," Upchurch said.
In the meantime, Upchurch urged Southern Arizonans to cooperate with the closure order.
"We've had some infractions," Upchurch said. "People stopping on the road to Mount Lemmon, some fireworks use, some smoking."
Fire risk is still high, Upchurch said. "We closed the forest to all users on June 9 and will continue until we get significant moisture to reduce the threat," he said.
Contact reporter Tom Beal at tbeal@azstarnet.com or 573-4158.
