The Aspen Fire burned from June 17, 2003, for about a month on

Mount Lemmon Mount Lemmon, with a summit elevation of , is the highest point in the Santa Catalina Mountains. It is located in the Coronado National Forest north of Tucson, Arizona, United States. Mount Lemmon was named for botanist Sara Plummer Lemmon, who ...

, part of the

Santa Catalina Mountains The Santa Catalina Mountains, commonly referred to as the Catalina Mountains or the Catalinas, are north and northeast of Tucson in Arizona, United States, on Tucson's north perimeter. The mountain range is the most prominent in the Tucson area, w ...

located in the

Coronado National Forest The Coronado National Forest is a United States National Forest that includes an area of about 1.78 million acres (7,200 km2) spread throughout mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. It is located in parts of ...

north of

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

, and in the surrounding area. It burned (132.4 sq mi) of land, and destroyed 340 homes and businesses of the town of

Summerhaven Summerhaven is a small unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) on Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson in Pima County, Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a permanent population of ...

. Damages to electric lines, phone lines, water facilities, streets and sewers totaled $4.1 million. Firefighting cost was about $17 million, and the Forest Service is spending $2.7 million to prevent soil loss. In 2002, the year before the fire started,

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

had been requested to allocate about $2 million to cover the implementation of fire prevention measures in the Coronado National Forest. However, that allocation was reduced to about $150,000 in the Congressional budget process.

References

* Barnes, Mary Ellen. ''Forged by Fire: The Devastation and Renewal of a Mountain Community.'' ucson, AZ Vireo House, 2005.

External links

Arizona Daily Star article covering the event

Pima County Aspen Fire Recovery
site
Aspen Fire Department
{{Arizona wildfires Santa Catalina Mountains History of Pima County, Arizona Wildfires in Arizona 2003 in Arizona 2003 wildfires in the United States Wildfires in Pima County, Arizona