Shortly after the Watch Fire began in San Carlos, Katie Dude looked up at a sky of grey clouds and smoke, praying for rain. But there were only drops.
"That fire, it doesn't feel sorry for anybody," she said.
The Watch Fire, which officials suspect was a result of arson, has destroyed at least 13 homes and displaced 75 people in the remote reservation area of San Carlos, home to members of the Chiricahua Apache Tribe.
On Thursday, at least 400 people living along White Mountain Avenue, Farmer’s Station, Peridot Heights and Old/New Moon were ordered to evacuate their homes. As of Sunday morning, the fire had burned around 2,162 acres and remained at 0% containment.
The San Carlos Apache Tribe called the fire the most serious structural fire on the reservation in 30 years. Three days later, residents are picking up the pieces.
The damage is evident on the roads of San Carlos
Stretches of brush were burned on Saturday. Mobile homes previously white or blue were covered in streaks of black ash and stained pink with firefighting slurry. One such home stood out against the mountainous landscape, half-burned from the top. Basketball courts were littered with debris, their hoop posts as black as the trunks of nearby trees.
Dude, who lives on White Mountain Avenue, cried as she saw the wall of flames coming toward her Wednesday. What started as a brush fire quickly ambushed the town as monsoon winds picked up the flames, and Dude continued to pray, worried they would overtake her father’s home nearby.
“I said, ‘God, I believe in you… you always said ‘fear not, I will be with thee in times of trouble,’ and I’m in trouble.’”
Dude and her family are pillars of their small town. Just in front of her home nestled off of White Mountain Avenue stands Katie’s Beauty Salon, a wooden den her grandfather used to sell soda out of where she’s worked as a hairstylist since the 1970s. She was grateful the fire didn't destroy it, although her backyard is charred.
Dude's sister Carol Sneezy, is a former Apache language teacher at Globe and San Carlos High Schools. Sneezy said she was the first person to call for help when the fire started, and it only took a few minutes for a wave of help to arrive from first responders, neighbors and her family, who refused to see their homes destroyed if they could help it.
Since Friday, Dude and Sneezy have been just two of hundreds helping their community begin to recover from the fire, despite having been in the midst of it themselves. Saturday morning, their aunt Hilary Dennis hung neon green signs on the barbed wire fence outside, offering free water, soda, Gatorade and food to first responders who drove by with supplies.
“Us San Carlos people, we help each other,” Dude said. “Our parents always said help one another, love one another and care for one another. I really feel like God sends me angels to do all this stuff."
Chipping in:How to help the San Carlos Apache Tribe after wildfire devastation
Community centers house donations, serve as refuge
Trucks drove to and from San Carlos all day, carrying donations.
Over at Burdette Hall, a gym in San Carlos, volunteers sorted under dim lights through pile after pile of clothing, water and household goods on the basketball court. Up on the stage sat more bags of clothes and children's toys like stuffed animals and books.
Burdette is one of a few places in the community acting as a donation and shelter center. Those in need of resources are also being directed to San Carlos High School and Apache Gold Casino and Resort, where those who lost homes are now staying.
Art Salter, executive assistant at Apache Gold Casino and Resort, was directing operations at Burdette on Saturday. Salter said no one expected the mass donations that centers have received or the extent to which people from outside San Carlos would reach out.
"I'm seeing heroes," he said, "through the mercy of God."
Rebecca Shrot sat on the bleachers, enjoying a few hours of respite from the smoke. The fire had burned her neighbor's home, but narrowly missed her trailer, which she returned to Saturday after evacuating to the casino for a couple of days.
Shrot was with her nephew when the fire hit. He urged her to get outside, but she went back in for her purse and wallet, which she was able to save along with the rest of her home. She remembers hearing the weeds make a popping sound.
"You could hear it running, that sizzling noise," she said. "It was like a nightmare."
Animals missing, injured as veterinarians continue rescue efforts
In the pavilion at Apache Gold Casino, high-pitched yelps came from a crate.
The pavilion is typically used as an event center and a shelter from the heat. But since Thursday, it's been a temporary home for about two dozen cats and dogs who were injured or lost while running from the fire.
Barking inside was 3-year-old Alistere, a black, scruffy dog with his feet wrapped in blue tape. His paw pads had been completely burned, and veterinarians had to hold him down as he cried in pain.
Alistere was just one of several dogs and cats with similar injuries. Safari, a white and brown cat just five months old, slept in a crate nearby, all four paws wrapped in pink tape. Across the room, a litter of tiny puppies squirmed and cuddled with each other. One dog, more severely burned than others, was transported to a hospital off the reservation for long-term medical care.
The Humane Society of Arizona has been working since Thursday to treat animals with injuries and temporarily board pets whose owners are searching for new homes. Mobile clinic manager Jacquelyn Agbebyi said The Humane Society treats animals on the reservation often, and had a spay-and-neuter event planned for this weekend. But that event was canceled due to the disaster.
"This community is our family, and we've been treating these animals for years," she said. "It really broke our heart to see that this is our family too, hurting, and it wasn't about what we don't have. It's the fact that we saw what we did and we were able to jump into action."
Agbebyi said she saw animals with burns on their paws, skin and coat, along with internal injuries from breathing in smoke. Cats suffered burned faces and singed whiskers and eyebrows.
Some of the animals at the pavilion whose owners had not yet claimed them were unnamed. One such case was a dog named "Parking Lot Dog," a small, pregnant 5-year-old dog found, indeed, in a parking lot.
Agbebyi said the total number of injured animals remains uncertain because many have gone missing or died in the fire.
Melissa Thompson, vice president of animal welfare and medical services at The Humane Society, said the hardest part was hearing firsthand accounts from people who lost their homes or can't find their pets.
"This is a community that needs help in general, anyway," she said. "I think I'm just thinking about how to support not just the animals who are going to need food and resources through this, but also the people who have essentially lost everything they have."
First responder reflects on saving homes
Former wildland firefighter Stephen Patten didn't expect a disaster like this to get him out on the land again. But when he saw the smoke Thursday as he was coming back from visiting his pregnant niece at a hospital in Globe, he dropped everything to go pull on his boots.
"I told my dad, 'Come on, let's go home. We've got to help save the neighborhood," Patten said, eyes crinkling as he laughed. Patten was part of the Geronimo Interagency Hotshot Crew for ten years.
When he arrived home, his neighbors' nephews and grandkids were already standing outside with water hoses and shovels, ready to defend the houses that have stood for generations. His wife had called him while he was at the hospital with his niece, worried the fire would engulf their home, too. Luckily, it didn't.
But Patten has a friend who lost his home, a place the two shared many conversations. He stood with an old hotshot crew member, Dennis Logan, watching the helicopter buckets drop over the place he grew up playing hide and seek, kick the can, basketball.
Fighting a fire like this requires strength and knowledge, Patten said, and he was glad for the experience he and Logan carry between them. They started near the river, pushing debris to the side and building a fire line using a nearby trail multiple homes rested along. Patten helped save those homes.
It was exciting to feel the rush of firefighting again, he said, but it's emotionally draining to see his own community be the victim. Rebuilding will take years, he said, because it involves much more than just houses.
"New areas, community, neighbors, everything for them, you know? It's not the same," he said. "They don't have that security blanket they had in their own yard."
Despite the emotional toll, he's choosing to remain hopeful as the community continues to pull together.
"We'll get through," he said. "We're Apaches. We've gotten through a lot of stuff, been through worse than this."
Looking at the road a few feet away, Patten seems to be proven right. A car pulling around the corner, once silver, is now stained almost completely pink with slurry.
It keeps driving, anyway.
Most Popular
Comments / 0