Maricopa County Sheriff's Deputy Tony Nikolic was as frustrated as everyone else, but he never showed it.
He'd already been on duty for hours Monday, standing in the heat at a checkpoint on Spur Cross Road, turning dozens of evacuated residents away from their own neighborhood.
It was two days after the 1,000-acre Ocotillo Fire raced through the dry brush just north of downtown Cave Creek, and no one who had evacuated was being allowed to return.
As Nikolic tried to placate the exasperated evacuees, his colleagues on the other side of the roadblock were dealing with another line of cars, this one full of people who had decided not to heed the evacuation order. If they decided to leave now, they were told, they wouldn't be allowed to return.
About 500 people in the path of the human-caused fire had evacuated, state fire officials said, and some had been allowed to return.
The area near Spur Cross Road, however, was still under a hard shutdown Monday and was unlikely to reopen until Tuesday afternoon.
"It's insane," said Mike Watt, "a total lack of leadership. We live right around the corner."
Watt said he wasn't angry at the deputies at the checkpoint, but he was frustrated by a lack of information and the seeming inability of anyone to make a common-sense decision.
He and his wife, Barb Minas, were among the residents who decided to stay in spite of the evacuation order, and the fire danger, in their estimation, had long since passed.
They'd been without electricity for two days. All their food had spoiled, and without power, the pump on their well wouldn't work. They were hoping to get out to pick up groceries and water.
'I have to take a chance'
By the time Watt and Minas approached the checkpoint trying to get out of their neighborhood, Lisa Greenman and Bruce Arlen had been waiting for nearly an hour in the hopes of getting in.
They'd evacuated in a hurry and had spent two nights in a hotel. They'd grabbed a few things but had forgotten their medications.
"I had been outside working and saw the smoke," she said. "We talked to our neighbors and we all thought they've got to get the horses out, so we loaded up our car too."
This was the second fire in a month.
"The first fire we left at 1 a.m," Greenman said. "This one was at 2 p.m."
Nikolic said if it were up to him, he'd let them get their medications, but it was out of his hands. Even his lieutenant, Jeremy Goad, who was stationed in an MCSO SUV just up the road, couldn't help.
The scene was under the control of the state Department of Forestry and Fire Management, and MSCO was just there to enforce their orders, Goad said.
As lines of fire vehicles, Arizona Public Service utility trucks and other vehicles entered the evacuation area, everyone who was held up at either side of the roadblock complained that the rules seemed arbitrary and unevenly applied.
Barry Kinsella, who has been living with a friend in the neighborhood, had spent part of Sunday at a Red Cross evacuation center at Cactus Shadows High School on Sunday. He said he was allowed to return home at 7 p.m. and found that his friend's home had been spared by the flames; a neighbor's had not been. On Monday, he needed to leave to get back to work and didn't understand why deputies were telling him that if he left, he wouldn't be allowed to return.
"I have to take a chance," he said. "If I can't get back in tonight, somebody's going to hear about it."
Neighbors helping neighbors
Nikolic said it was frustrating to have to tell everyone who asked — and practically everyone did ask — that he had no information for them.
He'd given out the information line number so many times he could recite it by heart, but every time a resident called it, there was no information to be had, which only added to their frustration.
He held out the possibility that people with medical needs might be allowed a quick in-and-out trip to their homes with an escort, but state fire officials would have to OK it.
Their public information officer had been called, but Nikolic didn't know when she was expected at the scene.
As residents waited, a frantic Jodi Leazenby drove up to the checkpoint in a Polaris off-road vehicle. She'd been contacted by an elderly friend of a friend who'd had to evacuate on Saturday and had left two donkeys without food or water. Leazenby was hoping she could go in and take care of them.
No chance, but Cave Creek, a community of 5,000 people, many of whom own horse properties, is a place where neighbors take care of neighbors.
Craig Eckherdt, who'd stayed in his neighborhood and was on the other side of the roadblock debating whether to leave, overheard the exchange. He knew the home Leazenby was trying to reach and offered to turn around and take care of the donkeys.
Next to plead her case was was Michaele McDonald. Her husband, a Vietnam veteran who is battling lymphatic cancer, had evacuated without his medicine while she was at work, and she needed to retrieve it.
"This is like the Twilight Zone," she said. "First Covid-19, then the political unrest and now this."
While McDonald waited, a woman pulled up in a white SUV. Her husband, with his arm in a sling, got out, clutching a white piece of paper.
"I just had surgery," Greg Hunt said. "I need to get home. I have a note from my doctor."
The couple, who had decided not to evacuate, left their home at 5 a.m. Monday for the Mayo Clinic for Greg's rotator cuff surgery.
They said they weren't told they wouldn't be able to return.
Two days earlier, Greg Hunt had used a hose to help battle the flames shortly after the fire broke out.
"I helped save peoples' homes," he pleaded.
Just then, Eckhardt returned from feeding the donkeys. The Hunts are his neighbors. He offered to drive them up to their house if the deputies would allow it.
After a quick discussion, Goad reluctantly agreed, and the Hunts parked their car and got in Eckhardt's truck.
No one who was waiting seemed to mind.
After a long morning, some answers
Finally, shortly after 1 p.m., a state Forestry and Fire agency vehicle pulled up.
Public affairs officer Tiffany Davila told residents that the fire was now 67 percent contained and that there still may be hot spots, which a number of residents disputed.
She added that there were concerns about leaking propane tanks on some properties and that APS workers were still struggling to restore power to key areas.
She said at least 10 homes in the area had been destroyed in the blaze, and that evacuees would be kept out until those who had lost homes were able to go in and assess the damage.
After a brief update, she said the words everyone was waiting to hear.
Deputies had permission to escort residents to their homes to retrieve their medications, first come, first served.
The first in line was a blue pickup driven by a Phoenix firefighter, who had his elderly father in the passenger seat.
"I could have gone and gotten my brush truck and driven right in," he said. "But that wouldn't have been right."
He and his father had been waiting for three hours.
John D'Anna is a reporter on The Arizona Republic/azcentral.com storytelling team. Reach him at john.danna@arizonarepublic.com and follow him on Twitter @azgreenday.
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