SB QST @ ARL $ARLB049
ARLB049 Hams supporting communications in Arizona forest fire

ZCZC AG49
QST de W1AW  
ARRL Bulletin 49  ARLB049
From ARRL Headquarters  
Newington CT  July 18, 2003
To all radio amateurs 

SB QST ARL ARLB049
ARLB049 Hams supporting communications in Arizona forest fire

Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and Radio Amateur Emergency
Service (RACES) volunteers have been providing communications
support during the Kinishba Fire in the White Mountains of Arizona.
Some 1000 firefighters are battling the Kinishba Fire, now reported
at some 20,100 acres and approximately 20 percent contained.

Navajo County Emergency Coordinator Cris McBride, KB7QXQ, says
Navajo County DEC and RACES Officer Dave Epley, N9CZV, is heading
the Amateur Radio response, which includes two people per shift at
three locations: A Red Cross evacuation Center in Snowflake, the
Navajo County emergency operations Center in Holbrook and the
Whiteriver Red Cross communications center. McBride credits Epley
with working into the early hours of July 17 to set up repeater
links so Red Cross personnel in Snowflake could communicate with
their colleagues in Whiteriver.

"Until that time, the Red Cross workers could not communicate
effectively, as their cell phones would not work with the cell phone
company's system out of Whiteriver," McBride said. Some 5000
Whiteriver residents were evacuated to safe zones on the outskirts
of the fire area, but fire officials now have lifted the evacuation
order and allowed them to return. The fire remains some two miles
from a point that would trigger further evacuations, however.

Lightning ignited the fire on July 13. Arizona Governor Janet
Napolitano has declared a state of emergency in Gila and Navajo
counties.
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