TRS Riders & The Pipe Line Fire in Flagstaff Az.
This past weekend, several members of the Trail Riders of Southern Arizona (TRS) made annual trip to Flagstaff for a weekend of camping and trail riding. On Friday and Saturday, the group enjoyed riding the Kelly Canyon trail system.
On Sunday a group of 6 TRS’ers broke camp and headed up to ride the Fort Valley trails. After the early boulder fest at upper moto the group took Newman to Secret trail. They doubled back and hit Rocky Moto. As one rider in the group rounded a turn, he saw a fire 200 yards straight ahead! Holy crap! He alerted the rest of the group at the next turn and that’s when the action began. First a call to 911 was made, while others headed back towards the fire to try to contain it. Two others in the group noticed a white pickup fleeing the scene and it was on! These two chased the truck got him to pull over while they video recorded him and his license plate. They called the Sheriff and reported the fleeing suspect.
These TRS’ers were at ground zero of the Pipeline Fire. The news reported a fire spotter first reported the fire around 10:15am Sunday. The TRS group came upon the fire around 10:30am. In that short period of time the fire had already ground to about ¼ of an acre in size. As you have probably heard the local news reports the suspect is now in custody. As trail riding advocates these riders were happy to take action to try and preserve the riding Fort Valley trails and the Coconino National Forest. Great job guys!