By Sunday, July 21, the day Operations Section Chief Mike Wallace gave a final update, fire crews had achieved 69 percent containment on the 11,162-acre Black Fire near Roosevelt Lake. Earlier evacuation orders were lifted, and Southwest Incident Management Team 3 was preparing to release crews and break down their command post at the lake’s Grapevine Campground.

The team’s plans included securing the lightning-caused fire’s perimeter and “cold trailing” (carefully feeling the perimeter with bare hands, in order to locate and eliminate any remaining hot spots).

Team Public Information Officer Emery Johnson said over 140 residences were initially threatened but no structures were lost. Threatened spots included the Tonto National Monument, Black Brush Ranch, Cross-P Ranch and Reevis Mountain School – all were given GO evacuation orders, along with several of the lake’s campgrounds. The Roosevelt Lake Marina and Lakeview Mobile Home Park were put on SET evacuation status.

Southwest Incident Management Team 3 took command of the fire last Wednesday and began setting up their Grapevine Campground command post. “We’re basically a transient town that pops up wherever we’re needed,” said Johnson. “What we have here is our logistics section and camp crews setting up different firefighting tools.” Tents had been set up, where fire managers would do their planning, and supplies were being unloaded – including side-by-sides, fold-a-tank water stations and extra fuel. “What they’re doing is setting up a staging location so the engines can come pick these up and put them where they’re needed,” said Johnson.

To protect the Black Brush and Cross-P ranches, she said, “what the firefighters have been doing is structure protection which includes putting sprinklers up with pumps and hoses and making sure that we are able to wet down the properties. They're also cutting up brush around the structures so that if fire does come close it's not going to settle in right by the structures. What they've been doing the last couple of days are back-burning operations, so they've been burning from that property up in a controlled manner.

“We’re seeing a lot of Arizona and New Mexico,” Johnson said of the firefighting crews. Among them were the Zuni Hot Shots, a Bureau of Indian Affairs Interagency Hotshot Crew based in Zuni, New Mexico. As for the Incident Management Team, they came together from around the nation: Johnson is from Alaska.

Last Wednesday, she said 445 people – nine 20-man crews – were working on the Black Fire, with nine engines, seven helicopters, one bulldozer and three water tenders. The helicopters included Type 1s, used to draw water from the lake, and smaller Type 3s for supply and reconnaissance missions. By Sunday, as containment progressed, there were two crews, 11 engines, one helicopter, two bulldozers and three water tenders – the balance of the firefighters who worked successfully to protect Roosevelt residents, the Tonto National Monument’s cliff dwellings (the monument, closed by the evacuation order, opens for its normal summer hours Wednesday, July 24), local ranches and the Reevis Mountain School.