Smoke billowed from Diamond Rim on the Tonto National Forest on Monday afternoon as a helicopter bobbed along overhead, dropping tiny fireballs to stoke flames on the ground.
The federally contracted chopper is based for this spring and summer at a new, $4.9 million U.S. Forest Service helicopter base in Star Valley that will aid in both fighting wildfires and igniting prescribed burns like the one on the ridge. The Payson Ranger District’s helitack team, which fights fires via helicopter, at times rappelling to the forest floor, has moved there from trailers that it formerly worked out of at the Payson airport.
The Forest Service started work last week on burning some 5,500 acres of brush and dense woodlands north of Payson in an effort to protect more than 400 homes and summer cottages scattered around the woods north and east of town.