WILLIAMS, AZ - U.S. Forest Service officials apologized to residents of a northern Arizona town for letting a controlled burn escape containment lines last week and threaten the city known as the "Gateway to the Grand Canyon."
Kaibab National Forest officials told Williams residents at a meeting on Thursday night that they will bring in outside investigators to review the incident and release their findings to the public.
"We sincerely apologize for what happened and for the stress and inconvenience it caused the community," Williams District Ranger Martie Schramm told an audience of more than 120 people. "We take full responsibility."
Schramm pledged the agency would re-evaluate its burning policies.
The planned 900-acre fire was lit last Thursday about 3 miles southwest of the town of about 3,000 residents. A wind shift sent the flames across containment lines and back toward the town, burning an additional 900 acres and prompting the evacuation of more than 60 homes over the weekend.
The fire was calm and 90 percent contained on Friday.
A handful of people in the audience at the Williams meeting critiqued the forest service planning or said the agency should give more thought to lighting fires during very windy periods.
At least as many applauded the agency or said they support prescribed burns and the town would be worse off without them.
Fire bosses said computer modeling was sometimes part of the equation, along with setting a test fire and checking weather and forest moisture.
Even before they declared it a wildfire, the two burn bosses at the prescribed blaze began turning the fire in on itself by lighting areas with a helicopter in an attempt to contain it.
