by Freda Parker
Ron Squire, Superintendent of the Heber-Overgaard Unified School District in Arizona, reports that the American Red Cross quickly established a disaster-relief distribution and processing center at the district's Mountain Meadows Elementary School, during the Rodeo-Chediski fire that raged through eastern Arizona from June 18 to July 7, 2002.
"We have two domes at Mountain Meadows," Squire said. "The larger one has classrooms and offices and the smaller one is our cafetorium. The Red Cross is using the smaller one."
According to a news bulletin on the Red Cross Grand Canyon Chapter website (www.arizonaredcross.org/newsletter.asp), volunteers at Mountain Meadows Elementary will provide information, supplies, and help for emotional recovery.
Both Heber and Overgaard, two small towns in the Sitgreaves National Forest north of the Mogollon Rim were in the fire's path. Residents of both communities were forced to evacuate. In Overgaard the fire did not reach the area surrounding Mountain Meadows Elementary, but Heber did lose more than 200 homes.
Rodeo-Chediski, Arizona's most destructive fire to date, burned across 468,638 acres of the White Mountains. It destroyed 467 homes, displaced 30,000 people who were forced to evacuate from nine communities, and took 4,400 firefighters to finally contain.
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