While the wimpy citizens of DC pratically wet themselves when a mysterious sniper shot 13 people in two months, killing 10 of them, the bold, courageous citizens of Phoenix brave not only dehydrating temperatures, but the prospect of being shot by one of two suspected serial killers. These charming sociopaths have eluded the efforts of the local police, the FBI, and the ATF.

Since August 2005, the so-called Baseline rapist has been linked to 21 crimes, among them seven sexual assaults and five homicides, four of those since March 15th. The Valley Gunman is thought to be responsible for 34 shootings since May 2005, 13 of those occuring in the last two months. Five of those died while 18 others were seriously wounded. Police aren’t entirely sure if those shootings are the work of one man or two.

In a smattering of articles in The Arizona Republic and The East Valley Tribune, the police encouraged people not to freak out in one breath while confessing that they didn’t have any definite suspects in the next. The profilers are baffled by the Valley Gunman who doesn’t discriminate when chosing his victims. He’s an equal opportunity shooter; the only consistency in the assaults is the time of day they occured–at night when it’s cool.

I suppose I should pay attention to this story, seeing as how five of the shootings since May 30th took place less than 3 blocks from our current apartment.

Just a few days after Flagstaff dodged a bullet, another major wildfire is burning in northern Arizona. This time, it’s Oak Creek Canyon, north of Sedona, that’s under the gun. And it could fuel an inferno. As of Tuesday morning, there was considerable fear that the fire could “gain a foothold in the untamed wilderness where it could burn uncontrollably, destroy homes and spread north toward Flagstaff. … A state of emergency has been declared, and the Brins Fire was ranked as a national priority.” The fire is still only 5 percent contained, but thus far firefighters’ worst fears haven’t been realized, and they’ve kept it on the east side of highway 89A, which is apparently crucial.

For the latest, visit the official “AZ211″ site, as well as AZ Central, KPHO and ABC15.

Live webcam views of Sedona can be found here and here.

Summer officially begins at 5:26 AM MST (8:26 AM EDT) tomorrow… which means it’s time for BrendanLoy.com’s quarterly post about how silly it is to say that the seasons “officially begin” on the solstices and equinoxes. (Hi Mike. :)

Here in Phoenix, it has felt like “summer” for quite a while, but it won’t take too much imagination over the next few days to recognize that summer has definitely arrived:

Holy freakin’ furnace, Batman!

Thanks to a little bit of luck and a lot of advance preparation (are you listening, New Orleans?), the city of Flagstaff didn’t burn down this week. (Previous posts here and here.) Major kudos to the fire department for a job well done.

P.S. Here’s a video of the smoke plume. And a bunch of Flagstaff bloggers have more: Desert Imaging, Bear Droppings, DilettanteVille, Life Inchoate, Babble’s hole in the web, and MySpace members shortie_jb, wanderinglori, cb78momod, and netdoctor.

Left photo by 12 News; right photo by Thomas Vincent.

Flagstaff blogger Thomas Vincent has great firsthand coverage of the Woody Fire in Flagstaff, Arizona, including a gallery of Flickr photos that he took after his office lost power due to the fire.

More photos here, from the NBC affiliate in Phoenix, Channel 12.

Channel 12 is reporting that the fire department has “0% containment,” but a firefighter said “it’s looking pretty good” and “it’s starting to settle down.” He also said “we got lucky” with this fire, which sounds like they think the worst danger is past. I don’t know how that jives with “0% containment,” but then, I’m no wildfire expert. (I’m not even a “wildfire nerd.”)

The Hidden Hollow trailer park, the Woody Mountain Campground, and Railroad Springs 66 are still under mandatory evacuation orders. But as of yet, no structures have been lost. There were close calls, to be sure. “There were people putting out fires literally right next to houses,” according to the fireman on Channel 12.

Whatever happens tomorrow, it’s clear that the firefighters did a great job responding very quickly and preventing a disaster, at least for now. Apparently they’ve done a lot of drills to prepare for precisely this type of scenario, and today’s successful effort just goes to show that preparing for disaster can save lives and property!

P.S. According to Thomas, “the area due east of the fire had been recently cleared for new home construction, which I suspect helped in gaining early containment on the fire. If the trees in that area hadn’t been cleared, like last year at this time, I think the situation would have been far worse. ”

Also: “I suspect the fire was started by a cigarette from a passing car, but that is just my guess based on how close the fire was to the roadway.” You can see what he’s talking about in these NBC 12 photos:

UPDATE: New post here.

The local news stations are reporting some major breaking news from Flagstaff, Arizona at this hour: a significant wildfire is burning a few miles southwest of downtown Flagstaff (and less than a mile away from a large subdevelopment), moving northeast — toward the city of 52,894 people.

Winds are blowing 20 to 30 mph out of the WSW, and are expected to continue at that clip for at least a couple more hours. The winds may die down a bit overnight, but in the long run, the winds will continue to be fairly strong, and out of the same direction, for at least 24 to 36 hours. Plus, we’re in a drought, and dew points are very low. The meteorologist on NBC 12 says, “All the ingredients are in place for a very large fire.”

I-40 westbound in the vicinity of the fire has been closed, as has Old Route 66. Lots of people have been evacuated from their homes. The plume of smoke can be seen easily from downtown.

UPDATE: Here’s a map showing roughly where the fire is.

UPDATE, 6:20 PM: The feds have just dispatched a C-130 from Utah to come fight the fire.

It’s called the “Woody Wildfire.” So far, it’s burned 100-200 acres. There are 1,200 people without power because a substation burned.

Flagstaff High School is being used as an Evacuation Center. People are being told they can (and should) bring their pets.

Lowell Observatory, where the planet Pluto was discovered, is directly in the line of fire and has been evacuated.

Also, a trailer park, Hidden Hollow Mobile Home, is about to get creamed.

UPDATE, 6:37 PM: The threatened development is Railroad Springs 66. Here’s a map showing how close it is to the fire.

UPDATE 6:45 PM: The firefighters are doing a great job. Against all odds, in spite of the extremely fire-friendly weather conditions, the fire hasn’t moved much over the last couple of hours.

You can watch live coverage here.

UPDATE, 7:00 PM: Northern Arizona University is about two miles due east of the fire. Here’s a north-facing webcam at NAU. Yeah, it’s looking the wrong way, but it still looks kinda smoky on the horizon. Here’s a large-sized version of the cam view; a new image appears every time you reload it, and you can actually see the smoke moving if you reload fast enough.

More webcams here.

FINAL UPDATE: See my new post for the latest.

You’ve seen the bear. Now, here’s a whole gallery of photos of our trip yesterday to northern Arizona, where we visited Out of Africa Wildlife Park and the towns of Jerome and Prescott. Some highlights below.


Sometimes the King needs a nap.


For some reason, these guys kept babbling about how USC only won one national championship. Go figure.


“Hakuna matata!”

More after the jump.

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I have lots of fun pictures from our trip today (”us” being me, Becky and Becky’s parents) to the Out of Africa Wildlife Park and the towns of Jerome and Prescott. I’ll try to get those photos organized and uploaded tomorrow, but for now, I offer this one as grist for a caption contest:

In case anyone’s confused, that’s a North American Black Bear. Now, have at it…

The Weather Channel’s Dr. Greg Forbes looks at Tuesday’s haboob, or duststorm, here in Phoenix.

Photos from today’s stormy weather in Phoenix, as seen from the 21st and 22nd floors of One Renaissance Square downtown:

More photos here.

P.S. Here’s an article about today’s storms. And here’s an article about yesterday’s massive duststorm.

Also from the Arizona Republic, photos of both storms.

P.P.S. For those who missed ‘em, here are my photos of yesterday’s duststorm.

And here are some more cool pictures of yesterday’s storm. In the last one, you can see my building; it’s directly behind the flagpole.

Getting back to today’s storm… after the jump, a radar animation of it:

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Don’t worry, despite the photo below of mammatus clouds overhead, there were no tornadoes, and I am still in one piece. :) The storm has passed now, and Becky is on her way to pick me up from work. I got lots of great pictures, and will upload a gallery this evening. Stay tuned!

I’m still at the office downtown, where a big-time thunderstorm is about to hit us. We’re under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. I plan to stay at the office till it passes, taking pictures. (I’ve never watched a thunderstorm from the 22nd floor before.) Alas, my cell-phone battery is almost dead, so liveblogging will be either sparse or nonexistent. But I’ll have cool photos later.

You wouldn’t think I would need a reader tip to make me aware of breaking weather news in my own city. But although I’d seen some dark clouds and heard Becky mention something about strong winds in the East Valley, it wasn’t until I saw Mike Tichon’s comment that I realized a serious duststorm was in progress, practically right outside my door.

Upon reading the comment, I promptly turned on the local news, which had a reporter standing at West 75th Ave. & I-10 — about 5 miles south-southwest of where we live — reporting that the wind and dust had just arrived there. I checked the radar, which showed the dust cloud moving rapidly toward us from the south; wrote up a quick blog post; then grabbed my cell phone and camera, and hurried outside.

The first thing I saw, after walking to a spot in the parking lot where I have a decent view of the southern sky, was this:

Then I looked to my left, and got an even cooler view: the approaching dust cloud, seen from the (west) side, moving steadily north:

I liveblogged that view, then liveblogged again after the cloud arrived. More photos here.

The duststorm wasn’t that severe, at least not out here in Glendale; I think it was stronger further east. Here, at least, visibility was nowhere near zero, as it can get in strong haboobs, and the wind was little more than a light breeze. Still, it was cool to watch the dust cloud move in.

While I was out taking photos, a fellow resident of our apartment complex pulled into his parking spot. “Taking pictures of the dirt?” he asked me. Heh. Yup.

Anyway, thanks for the tip, Mike!

After the jump, a couple of cool radar views showing how the duststorm developed as a gust front from a strong thunderstorm south of Phoenix:

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A Duststorm Warning is in effect as a five-mile-wide duststorm moves across the Phoenix area on 6/6/06.

It’s moving toward us from the south, and will be here soon. Radar image here.

It’s been hot for most of the time we’ve been here, but today was the first “holy crap, I just walked into a furnace” day of the summer. The high temperature was 112 degrees, which is a new record high for Phoenix on June 3. As of 7:36 PM, the temperature has cooled to a mild 108°. Yeah, needless to say, we won’t be taking Robbie to the dog park this evening. Sheesh.

An excessive heat warning is in effect, which seems like an exercise in NWS understatement. This misery is expected to “continue unabated into early next week.” I realize it’s Phoenix and it’s summer, but still. Harumph.

P.S. I blame Al Gore!