Amidst the beauty of flowering saguaros and prickly pear cacti, a wildfire ignited in the heart of the Sonoran Desert in central Arizona on June 4, 2021. Fueled by nonnative grasses dried out by a relentless drought, the flames were further fed by the scorching weather. A nearby weather station recorded a temperature of 36° Celsius (97° Fahrenheit), while the dry conditions caused sparks to fly as firefighters’ bulldozers cleared brush.
By June 7, strong winds pushed the wildfire east-northeast into the Pinal Mountains, surprising even seasoned firefighters as it rapidly climbed rock cliffs and tore through vast expanses of chaparral. As it reached the pine forests at higher elevations, the fire voraciously consumed everything in its path.
Known now as the Telegraph Fire, it grew so intense that it generated its own winds, creating a powerful convection force that sucked in air from all sides. Described as one of the most challenging fires to combat, the Telegraph Fire continued to rage towards the city of Globe, having already engulfed an area five times the size of the city itself. This massive blaze would go down in history as one of Arizona’s largest wildfires, scorching approximately 700 square kilometers of land - equivalent to half the area of Phoenix. Yet, miraculously, Globe remained untouched by the flames.
2024-04-30 11:00:00
Source: www.sciencenews.org
