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Protecting Mt. Lemon

After a fire had burned and greatly damaged the majority of a mountain, Mt. Lemon, in Tucson, AZ, a bunch of youth, including myself, set out to the mountain to help reduce potential fire hazards for any fires in the future.

On the way up all we saw for miles in certain areas were scarred moonscape lands and dead trees black as charcoal. Then we got to our destination. The area, fortunately, was still green and had three or four summer camps nearby. One of these camps I go to myself.

We all started by getting stray dead logs and branches at the bottom of ditches and moving them up to the top on the road where they could be burned safely later. The logs and branches were scattered everywhere, but with the help of other youth, we accomplished the job by three o'clock in the afternoon.

Once we were finished, the firemen thanked us, and they were very grateful. They said that the job would have taken their troop at least three days to accomplish, for which the government would have to pay! We did it for free.

The very next year, another fire broke out on Mt. Lemon, and my camp was saved with only minor damages to other summer camps in the vicinity. It seems almost a miracle to us because all around the campsite was burned. The area we cleaned and made "fireproof" was saved, and that saved our camps.

Larissa, age 16.

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