PHOTO: From the stark, deeply incised rock face of Pusch Ridge to the spruce-lined top of Mount Lemmon, one color seems to have dominated the two-week battle of the Bighorn Fire: Flaming, searing red — maybe a cross between the hues of raspberries and some coral reefs.
It’s the color of the aerial fire retardant that firefighters dropped on many a ridgeline in an effort to slow the stubborn blaze, which has burned about 42,000 acres both inside and outside the Pusch Ridge Wilderness.
As of Thursday, 358,000 gallons of retardant — enough to fill more than 30 backyard swimming pools — had been dropped all around the Catalina Mountains. That’s almost 50% more gallons of retardant than were dropped onto all national forest wildfires in Arizona in 2016.