CAVE CREEK — Lisa and Bruce Arlen wrapped their paintings in bubble wrap and paper for the second time in two weeks. 

They sped away from their house after cramming everything into their Ford SUV. Flames and smoke filled their rear view mirror as they fled what was being called the Ocotillo Fire. 

The Ocotillo Fire had started just hours before, and it would keep the Arlens out of their home for three days. It raged north through Cave Creek until the winds shifted, stopping right at the edge of Morning Star Road — across from the Arlen’s house.

When the couple returned after the fire was put out, the house was miraculously unscathed. 

“We were very fortunate,” Lisa Arlen said two years after the destructive fire, which started May 30, 2020.

Those living south of them were less fortunate. 

Fernando Villalobos lived in Cave Creek with his wife, Marcia, for more than 30 years. Like the Arlens, they evacuated as the Ocotillo Fire burned more than 1,000 acres of land and 12 residential structures. But they didn’t return to a miracle. 

Their fully-furnished live-in barn and their art studio, where Fernando Villalobos made pottery for a living, were reduced to shards of half-melted glass, warped metal and cement-brick walls. 

Left with nothing but an empty, one story house on the five-acre property, they relied solely on their community, which came together to help them and other victims of the fire. 

The town of Cave Creek took drastic measures in the aftermath of the Ocotillo Fire and another that started in the same month, working to help prevent another disaster from striking.

Rather than continuing to rely on neighboring towns to come to the rescue, Cave Creek established its own fire department and joined a better system for out-of-town aid. Town officials have also taken steps to educate and train citizens to protect both their homes and the environment from future disaster. And citizens, not just town officials, have done all they can to help each other bounce back. 

But the legacies of the Cave Creek fires still loom over the desert town. 

It began in June 2005, when the Cave Creek Complex Fire, the third-largest fire in recorded Arizona history, burned through the Tonto National Forest, racing toward Cave Creek. 

Tonto forest fire officials, along with state and local agencies, fought the fire before a Type 1 Incident crew took over. Though it never reached Cave Creek, it came close, and it burned 11 homes in Camp Creek, a populated area in the Tonto Forest. 

One of those homes belonged to then-Cave Creek mayor Vincent Francia. He had lived in the cabin for years, starting in 1976 when he worked as a cook at a saloon. 

“The cabin was in a canyon and the fire just came roaring up there,” he told The Arizona Republic 17 years later. 

But Francia didn’t have time to think about his old home. He was focused on ensuring his community’s safety. 

“It was a full week without any sleep,” he said. “Evacuation of any kind is a mayor’s worst nightmare.”

The nightmare never came true. 

“It came down to the last minute,” he said. “It wasn’t luck. It was good firefighting.”

The fire was started by a lightning strike in Scottsdale, so Jim Ford, who then served as deputy chief of the Scottsdale Fire Department, helped direct early firefighting efforts.

“We knew it could (happen), but the perception is ‘It won’t come here,’” Ford said. “Nobody ever thinks they’re gonna be involved. You see it on TV. Sometimes it comes close to home.”

Francia, who is also the general manager of Turf Paradise Race Track in Phoenix, opened his stables to allow residents to board their animals in case of an evacuation order. The stables housed hundreds of donkeys, horses, goats and other animals, he said, and the entire community came together to help one another.

It was “an indication of the type of community Cave Creek is,” he said. “We respect each other's privacy, but if somebody’s in trouble, everybody’s there.”

Francia described the Cave Creek Complex Fire as eye-opening for the community. More than a decade later, two more fires opened eyes even wider.

Ernie Bunch was in his second term as volunteer mayor of Cave Creek when the East Desert fire ignited on May 17, 2020 west of town, and burned nearly 1,500 acres as it consumed brush and vegetation east through the mountains. 

“It’s pretty scary to be mayor of a small town and see heavy slurry bombers over your town,” Bunch said. 

Like the 2005 Cave Creek Complex Fire, the East Desert Fire never reached any structures in town. But evacuations were ordered. 

The Arlens were among those told to leave their homes. They neatly packed their paintings and other essentials, unaware they’d repeat the process again later in the month. As night drew near, the flames of the East Desert Fire grew increasingly visible in the distance. 

The couple left to go to a friend’s apartment, but ended up sleeping in their car until 4 a.m. the next day, by which time the evacuation order had been lifted. 

Just a few days after the Arlens returned, on May 30, a man cut a metal fence with a grinder, Ford said, emitting sparks that quickly ignited the Ocotillo Fire. It soon grew out of control. 

The Arlens and Villaloboses had to leave their homes within hours. Evacuations were led by the town marshal and sheriff’s department. 

“You always have some people who say ‘I’m not leaving. I’m gonna defend my house,’” Ford said. “We can rebuild your house. We can’t replace your life.”

The Arlens said they didn’t think twice about leaving.

“When you’re told to leave, just leave,” Bruce Arlen said. 

The East Desert Fire started when a man was clearing out plants around his house and the weed-whacker sparked on rocks. He was trying to create what is known as “defensible space,” which Ford says is crucial to wildfire prevention. 

The most important part of creating a defensible space, Ford said, is clearing all flammable material, including plants, firewood and trimmings, from within a 5-foot radius of the house. That way, the fire might burn surrounding vegetation from a farther distance, but should burn around the house itself.

Ford also recommends regularly clearing gutters of leaves and clearing dead plant matter and clippings from the house.

“You gotta give the firefighters a chance,” he said. “If you give them defensible space, they might have a better chance. If your house is overgrown and you decide to stay, you’re creating a larger risk for firefighters and police.” 

Firefighters and police aren’t the only ones who respond to calls for help in Cave Creek.

Sunny Parker created Arizona Foothills 911 to do that. It began in 2017, when her son was in a coma. He had acute Myeloid Leukemia, and the doctors told Parker he wouldn’t make it. Parker said she promised God she'd do good for the rest of her life if he did.

Her son recovered, and Parker kept her promise. 

Foothills 911 began as a Facebook group that quickly grew to thousands of people. When the East Desert Fire began, Parker put out a post, recruiting more than 200 people with trailers to evacuate people and their animals. 

“This is what we need to start doing,” she recalled saying.

Departments from surrounding towns responded to both the East Desert and Ocotillo fires through Valley Mutual Aid, an agreement that the nearest department will help a community if it’s in need. 

“But it’s not a guarantee,” Ford said. If other departments don’t have the resources or ability to help, nothing can be done. 

Valley Mutual Aid sent the Cave Creek a letter after the Ocotillo Fire saying other departments would most likely not be able to send aid again in the event of another fire.

Left with no safety net, Cave Creek hired a consultant to assess the risk, and the surrounding fire chiefs reached out to Ford, along with Phoenix, Scottsdale and Glendale fire departments.

They decided that because Ford grew up in Cave Creek, he should go there. Cave Creek signed an intergovernmental agreement with Scottsdale to bring Ford on as community risk reduction director

“It’s my job to tell them what they need and what they don’t need,” Ford said. “And they listened to me.”

He joined the town in December 2020, and by Dec. 7, 2021, Cave Creek established its first fire department. The department contracted with Daisy Mountain Fire Department, agreeing to provide a new engine, a new tanker and all new firefighting equipment, while Daisy Mountain provided 15 staff members and controls operations. 

“I can use the expertise that’s already there,” Ford said, rather than build a fire department from scratch.

No longer a part of mutual aid, the town passed a resolution in early 2021 to join Automatic Aid. It follows a similar structure to Mutual Aid, except that aid from other departments is always guaranteed. 

Everything in the Automatic Aid system has to be uniform, Ford said. Departments have the same training, the same command structure and the same dispatch.

Towns must qualify for Automatic Aid by proving that they are willing to make changes. The Town Council passed a resolution in early 2021 to be a part of the system, and Cave Creek was officially made a member on Jan. 3 of this year. 

One of the first things Ford did as community risk reduction director was survey the community to see what they knew about fire prevention and what preventative features the town already had. 

He held up a white sheet of paper next to his face. “This blank sheet of paper is what the town (had),” he said. They didn’t know what they were doing.”

The next step was education. Ford hosts up to five open community forums each year for residents to ask questions about fire prevention. He spreads flyers throughout the town with reminders and checklists about how to best defend a home. Twice a year, Cave Creek residents can bring their yard clippings to the fire department to be properly disposed of. 

“We’re gonna have fires every year because we are a desert,” he said. “Don’t wait on everybody else — defend your property first.”

Whispering Hills, a neighborhood in Cave Creek, was the first in town to become a certified FireWise community, meaning it passed specific certifications including investing at least $2 per capita into local wildfire mitigation projects. 

Since Ford’s arrival and the creation of the Cave Creek Fire Department, Bunch said improvements are already visible.

“We’re certainly more prepared,” he said. “We’ve had multiple small starts, and they just threw so much equipment at it that they were easily put out. It’s been quicker, incredible responses.”

Two fires in the same month are rare, but Bunch attributed the phenomenon to “a tremendous amount of rainfall” in 2020. 

That rainfall accelerated the growth of globe chamomile, an invasive species native to South Africa that now grows all over the area. The plant is what’s known as a flash-fuel, meaning it burns quickly and spreads the fire to larger foliage. 

Being aware of flash fuels can also help protect saguaro cactuses.

“Saguaros now all have a large amount of flash fuels at the base,” Ford said. “So when the fire comes through it lights that, it turns into a campfire and boils the saguaros. If you wanna save the saguaros, clear out around the base, and when the fire comes through, It'll burn the needles off, but the saguaros will be fine.”

Globe chamomile grows in the remains of the Villalobos barn. 

In every direction there are burn scars across the land, peppered with charred, slowly collapsing saguaro skeletons. Dry brush is scattered along East Desert Hills Road. It dips into a shallow ravine, with nothing remaining but bare stone and dead foliage. The mountains in the distance are scarred with black and yellow. Still, greenery shows through in some places, showing signs of new life. 

Sunny Parker found Fernando and Marcia Villalobos five days after the Ocotillo Fire. Fernando Villalobos originally thought Parker had come to take his house away. But she was out with Foothills 911, helping victims however she could. Though neither Villalobos was injured in the fire, neither could take care of their ruined land themselves. 

Fernando’s multiple myeloma cancer keeps him from working. Sunny takes him to multiple doctor’s appointments per day. Community members and local businesses banded together to clear the remaining debris, to raise money and collect food for the couple, and to install a new roof and new electrical system. 

Still, the house is barren. 

Just a few miles up the road, the Arlens settled into their home after three days of staying in a friend’s empty house. In those three days, Bruce Arlen composed a song about the fear he felt, titled “SMOKE.”

“The flames are too high I fear, smoke blurs my vision, my eyes begin to tear,” one line goes.

The difference between the Arlens and the Villaloboses: a few miles of latitude.

When Fernando’s health declined, Parker became his full-time caregiver while continuing to run Arizona Foothills 911, which is now a registered non-profit and has more than 10,000 members in the Facebook group. It protects Cave Creek and surrounding communities, and will go outside that area to help when it can. 

Parker constantly monitors fire dispatchers and organizes people to help as soon as emergencies occur. She also distributes “Ready-Set-Go” bags to neighborhoods and businesses. The bags contain emergency items to keep ready for emergencies, including checklists to prevent fires and other climate disasters. And she hosts live panels with experts in fire safety and prevention.

In addition to helping her fellow community members protect their homes, Parker helped Fernando keep the two promises he made to Marcia.

The first was that they would be married in a church. A year after the fires, Fernando and Marcia were remarried in a small church in Cave Creek. Parker said she was worried that Marcia, who had been nonverbal for some time by then, wouldn’t be able to say her vows. But that day, she said, Marcia spoke “crystal clear.”

The second promise was that Marcia would die in her own home, which she did on April 18. She was 87.

“I granted her wishes,” he said. “I feel very thankful for that.

"She continues to live in my heart. I will love her forever.”

Unable to afford the house, and too afraid of future fires to continue living there, Fernando, now 64, put the house up for sale and moved in with Parker. 

“I’m very happy with my new family,” he said through a smile. 

Deciding to sell the home was “extremely hard.”

“My entire life is here,” he said.

Now living with Parker, Fernando plans to receive a stem cell transplant in the coming months. Though the survival rate of that operation is low, he remains hopeful, wearing a brown Scapular of Our Lady of Guadalupe around his neck, dangling alongside his wedding ring.

“All I want to do,” he said, “is to be able to give back to the community what they did for me.”

The Cave Creek Fire Department offers this information to help residents guard against wildfires: