(July 29, 2022) More than a year after the Spur Fire reduced Rick Williamson’s home and 11 other Bagdad homes to rubble, the Mill Maintenance Supervisor received a set of keys to his rebuilt company home.
It’s been a long road for Williamson and those displaced by the fast-moving, 150-acre wildfire, which, on May 27, 2021, left many in the west central Arizona company town with only clothes on their back and shoes on their feet. Standing in his backyard overlooking the townsite as it settles into the valley below, Williamson recalled watching the advancing flames with a neighbor, thinking their connected houses were safe.
“We couldn’t see houses burning down below from where we were,” he recalled. “We thought it was just the hillside that was burning. Then the wind shifted, and it started coming up the hill.”
With flames moving in, Williamson grabbed what he could and left, stopping to help his neighbors down the street along the way. In the end, five homes on Maricopa Drive (including Williamson’s), five on Poplar Court, one on Laurel Court and one on Palo Verde Road were left in ruin.
Immediately after the blaze, the local community rallied around those who lost everything, as Freeport-McMoRan set aside $4.5 million to assist in rebuilding the homes. Despite supply shortages, Premiere Builders Group is moving swiftly to construct three four-bedroom and eight three-bedroom houses.
“If it wasn’t for supply chain issues, it’d probably be done already,” said Lawrence Annoh-Opong, Senior Construction Engineer-Bagdad. Getting concrete trucked to the remote town has been a challenge as has getting cabinets and countertops.
Reducing the fire threat
Even as the company began the rebuild process last year, local authorities, townsite and company officials met to discuss how to reduce the fire threat by not only removing fuels such as debris and dry brush, but by converting fire lines into a multiuse trail system.
While clearing brush and trash was one effective preventive measure discussed, the group also quickly developed a plan to convert fire breaks used during the Spur and Park fires into a growing network of 5.6 miles of multiuse trails. The idea was to make the trails wide enough to support firefighters and their equipment should they need to battle another fire in the area.
“We got involved right afterward and began looking at what plans we have in place,” said Matthew Linnenbrink, Senior Health and Safety Supervisor-Bagdad, who has helped organize the trail-building effort. “Brush buildup was a big part of the issue, and firebreaks were a big conversation we had.”
Soon, mine staff and contractors were brought in to survey, map and develop the trails to help ensure they were suitable for hiking, off-road driving or mountain biking. They then developed a maintenance plan so everything is regularly maintained.
“We don’t want anything to happen again this year, so we looked at how we maintain this, so it doesn’t happen again,” Linnenbrink said. “It has been a very collaborative effort with the fire department, Mine Ops, Mine Tech, GSC (Global Supply Chain), the townsite and our contractors to help us build these firebreaks and fuel mitigations.”
The need to be better prepared was a hard lesson that has touched everyone here, said James Mitchell, Support Equipment Operator II-Bagdad, who manned a backhoe and helped to dig lines during the Spur Fire.
“With the amount of damage that the fire did and the rural area that we’re in, we needed to build up those fire lines,” he added. “This is our home. We’re all family here and you want to protect what you have. You don’t want the same thing to happen again.”