Beaver Valley residents flee fast-moving wildfire

A blaze of “human origin” forced the residents of Beaver Valley and Whispering Pines to hastily pack their cars and flee their homes Sunday as fierce, dry storm cells pushed the blaze first north, then south.

The fire consumed at least 500 acres yesterday and held steady overnight, without the reported destruction of any structures. Fire crews gathered up from a wide region over night attacked the fire this morning, hoping to keep it contained on Diamond Point and away from the forest communities of Whispering Pines, Beaver Valley and Geronimo Estates.

A few people spent the night in a makeshift evacuation center at Payson High School’s gym, but most apparently stayed with family and friends as they waited through the night for word on whether the fire had reached their subdivisions.

The fire started just off Houston Mesa Road opposite the popular Water Wheel Campground, about a mile up the road from several hundred homes in Beaver Valley Estates, on the banks of the East Verde River.

Winds pushed the fire back across the road, forcing the hasty evacuation of the busy campground and burning up both sides of the creek running through the popular swimming hole and waterfall.

However, a storm cell moved through the area as the fire spread, pushing it back across the road. Flames then went racing up the steep slopes of Diamond Point, moving back down rapidly toward Beaver Valley.

With most of the big fire crews in California, local fire departments including Beaver Valley, Houston Mesa, Payson and Hellsgate raced to respond, with help from Tonto National Forest crews.

The Forest Service deployed water-dipping helicopters and two fire suppression bombers, which flew in from Prescott. Without resources to surround the wind-whipped fire, crews concentrated on cutting a fire line and dumping retardant between the unpredictable fire and the homes of Beaver Valley, nestled among the trees and surrounded by thick brush.

The order to evacuate came just after 2 p.m. yesterday, prompting residents to hastily throw together their most precious possessions and join a procession of cars making their way out along narrow, winding, Houston Mesa Road.

Residents of Whispering Pines were directed out the Control Road, since the fire was burning on both sides of Houston Mesa Road between them and the highway.

Several residents reportedly remained in the development to water down their roofs. Constructed alongside the East Verde in a thickly forested area about six miles farther up Houston Mesa Road from Beaver Valley, the community’s only exit besides Houston Mesa is the long, forested, dirt Control Road.

Residents of Beaver Valley made their way out Houston Mesa Road, since the fire remained on the other side of the East Verde River. Thick smoke that drifted all the way into Payson harried them as they hurried out. Many initially stopped at a pullout and overlook near Shoofly ruins, to watch the whole mountain above their homes burn, sending up a thick column of smoke that developed its own thunderhead — like a mushroom cloud.

Beaver Valley residents had to make their way out through the single exit from the cul-de-sac town as the fire roared toward them. The Beaver Valley Fire Department has been pleading with the U.S. Forest Service for a long time for permission to bulldoze a rough, roughly 250-foot road along a Gila County right of way to create a back door to the community, which has many second homes and retirees. Fortunately, the residents had time to get out the front door on Sunday.

A change of wind and the line of retardant laid down by repeated round trip bomber runs from Prescott stopped the fire perhaps a quarter mile from the East Verde River. The winds that had been driving the fire down on Beaver Valley now turned and drove the fire back up the slope and over the top of the mountain.

Fire crews worked through the night to create a narrow break of bare ground along the edge of the burn area closest to Beaver Valley, fearful that the smoldering stumps and roots would remain hot enough to re-ignite the thick manzanita and oak brush between the development and the burn area.

Crews hope to prevent the fire from continuing to move to the west through the thick forest four or five miles to Geronimo Estates, a small community built a long a steep, narrow canyon - with most of the houses hidden in thickset trees, many perched on the side of the canyon. The only access to that community lies along forested dirt roads.