The secret to happiness: 1B
Photo courtesy of DJ Craig
PAYSON ROUNDUP
NATIONAL LOCAL MEDIA ASSN. & ARIZONA NEWSPAPER ASSN. NEWSPAPERS OF THE YEAR
payson.com
TUESDAY | JANUARY 12, 2016 | PAYSON, ARIZONA
Dog’s barking saves family
75 CENTS
Trees topple; power dies by
Alexis Bechman
roundup staff reporter
A family’s vehicle was destroyed last week when a tree limb snapped during a winter storm that dumped more than a foot of snow on Payson. Nick Payne says a “mighty oak” fell Friday out in front of his home on South Manzanita
Drive and East Juniper Street. The tree’s branches draped over the power lines, stretching the line. The tree crushed Payne’s 2002 Mitsubishi Galant parked below. On Monday, half of the tree was still standing, which Payne
• See Storm, page 2A
‘No bad days’ Family recalls Greg Day’s laughter and courage by
Michele Nelson
roundup staff reporter
Photos courtesy Pine/Strawberry Fire Department
Flames consume home in Pine by
Alexis Bechman
roundup staff reporter
A family lost their Pine home early Saturday morning, but escaped uninjured likely thanks to their dog. Around 4:45 a.m., the Randall family awoke to their dog, Duke, barking incessantly. They looked outside and saw flames in the carport, near Clayton Randall’s bass boat, said Pine-Strawberry Fire Chief Gary Morris. “The real hero here is Duke,” he said. “If he had not been barking it could have been a tragedy.” The family, including Clayton Randall’s wife and their 18-year-old son, grabbed what personal items they could and ran outside. Firefighters found the 5,000-square-foot home in the 6100 block of South Rose, fully involved when they arrived. It appears the fire started near the bass boat and quickly extended to the carport and then the home. “It was a very rapid spread,” Morris said. Crews used water from a pond downhill
from the home to attack the blaze, putting three attack lines in place. “The volume of the fire exceeded the capabilities of the hose streams to knock it down,” he said. All of P-S units were on scene and Payson sent a water tender truck and a battalion chief to help. Morris said it was incredibly difficult to fight the fire given the weather. It was 22 degrees and the water quickly turned to ice on the driveway, creating an ice skating rink. Three firefighters slipped and fell, but were uninjured. Investigators believe the fire started near where the bass boat’s battery was attached to a trickle battery charger. No official word yet on how the fire started. The family had a lot of support from family and friends on scene, Morris said.
Duke’s frantic barking woke the Randall family early Saturday morning in time to escape the flames that ultimately destroyed their 5,000-square-foot home in Pine.
Peter Aleshire
roundup editor
Outlook: Sunny with highs in the mid to upper 40s, lows in the mid to low 20s. Details, 9A
volume 26, no. 4
See our ad and upcoming events on page 10A
• See Family, page 2A
Fighting wildfires may do more harm than good by
THE WEATHER
So many loved Greg Day that the family will hold a celebration of his life at the Payson High School Auditorium on Jan. 16 at 10 a.m. “Whoever wants to come, I hope they come,” said Jeff Day, Greg’s middle son. The well-known Payson restaurant owner lost his brave, five-year struggle with cancer last week, sending ripples of grief throughout the community. Greg’s wife Cari said the schools knew their family well since all three children graduated from Payson schools and Greg raised the money for the digital sign on Longhorn that announces district news. He also did the rock work for the Payson High School entrance sign. Jeff said his father loved building so much the family had a working vacation home south of Tucson.
“We would take family trips down to Cochise (the family name for the home),” said Jeff. “It was a vacation home, but it was an empty shell of a house in the middle of nowhere. Jeff laughed as he remembered how his father would inspire he and his siblings to work. “At the time, we thought it was hard work,” he said. “He made it fun. He didn’t push us too hard.” After getting a little remodeling in, Jeff said the family would take hikes or ride dirt bikes, a passion Greg brought with him from his youth. Both Jeff and Cari said there was no way to forget Greg’s smile or his huge laugh, always accompanied by a “smack on the back.” “You talk about that smile, it was an infectious smile,” said Jeff. “He would slap you on the back — almost too hard.”
Forest fires the U.S. Forest Service has extinguished for decades would have provided much better protection from even worse fires had they been allowed to burn, according to a study by the Rocky Mountain Research Station. The research demonstrates the likely benefits of thinning and fire management practices increasingly common in Rim Country, as applied this past summer when the Forest Service took advantage of wet monsoon conditions to manage many fires rather than rushing to put them out. Two fires that burned several thousand acres on
the C.C. Cragin watershed provide one local example. The low intensity ground fires produced lots of smoke that alarmed many Rim Country residents, but in the end mostly consumed brush, downed wood and saplings — leaving the forest in a healthier condition. Moreover, the fires effectively created a firebreak that will protect a portion of the watershed of the C.C. Cragin Reservoir from the kind of high-intensity crown fire that could produce such a dramatic increase in erosion that it would severely reduce the capacity of the reservoir to store the water on which Payson’s future depends. The Rocky Mountain Research Station researchers essentially computer modeled that sort of approach to wildfires based on decades of fire records in the
watersheds around Yosemite and Sequoia KingsCanyon in California. They mapped each of the small, lightning-caused fires crews rushed to suppress during relatively damp times of the year. Then they used computer models to predict how large an area those relatively low-intensity fires would have burned had crews not put them out quickly. Next, they mapped the larger, more destructive fires. Fighting those major, intense fires now consumes about half of the Forest Service budget, but they still often grow to hundreds of thousands of acres. These mega fires can permanently alter ecosystems and destroy whole towns.
• See Suppressing, page 5A
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