Talk:Sawmill Fire (2017)

Sawmill Fire (2017) is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 24, 2022.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
September 4, 2021	Good article nominee	Listed
June 27, 2022	Featured article candidate	Promoted

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on September 25, 2021.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the Sawmill Fire of 2017, which burned more than 45,000 acres (18,000 ha), was started at a gender reveal party?

Current status: Featured article

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sawmill Fire (2017)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: GhostRiver (talk · contribs) 21:59, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be taking a look at this article! — Ghost River 21:59, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV ()

3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant ()

Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Infobox and lede

"and then to extinguish"
- Added –♠Vami _IV†♠ 23:56, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Footage of the fire's inception was released by the U.S. Forest Service at the request of a local news agency in November 2018, resulting in its causation being mocked online." → "When the U.S. Forest Service released footage of the fire's inception in November 2018 at the request of a local news agency, the cause of the Sawmill Fire was subject to online mockery."
- Done I've also moved this sentence after the next one. –♠Vami _IV†♠ 23:56, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cause

To clarify, is the property owned by the state of Arizona, or by Arizona State University? If the former, as I suspect, then I would suggest saying "a state-owned property in south-central Arizona"
- Added Indeed, the former is what I meant. –♠Vami _IV†♠ 00:10, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"but was unable to because of the speed at which it was spreading." → "but the speed at which it spread rendered his attempts unsuccessful."
- Done Sorta. I changed it to "but was unsuccessful because of the speed at which it was spreading." –♠Vami _IV†♠ 00:10, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fire

"and precipitation was abnormally low for the region"
- Added –♠Vami _IV†♠ 03:14, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"and had been closed on April 24" → "and had been closed earlier that day"
- Done –♠Vami _IV†♠ 03:14, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"repairs to the road, meanwhile, lasted until early May"
- Added –♠Vami _IV†♠ 03:14, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Wind as high as 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) was expected" → "Winds as high as 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) were expected"
- Fixed Don't know how I missed that one. –♠Vami _IV†♠ 03:14, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"by 30 April" → "by April 30"
- Fixed Whoops. –♠Vami _IV†♠ 03:14, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Aftermath

WL U.S. Attorney's Office
Added –♠Vami _IV†♠ 04:16, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"though the fire started on property of the State of Arizona, Federal property had been burned." → "although the fire started on property of the State of Arizona, federal property had also been burned."
- Added –♠Vami _IV†♠ 04:16, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"and was summoned to appear"
- Added –♠Vami _IV†♠ 04:16, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"on 29 September" → "on September 29"
- Fixed –♠Vami _IV†♠ 04:16, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"in Dickey and gender reveal parties in general" → "in both Dickey and the concept of gender reveal parties"
- Done –♠Vami _IV†♠
I would say "the first wildfire known to be ignited by a gender reveal party"
- Added –♠Vami _IV†♠ 04:16, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"igniting more public outrage" → "which ignited more public outrage"
- Done –♠Vami _IV†♠ 04:16, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

"azcentral" → "The Arizona Republic" with WL in [16] and [43]
- Done –♠Vami _IV†♠ 04:18, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Add "|url-access=limited" parameter to NYT (3), WaPo (39), and Forbes (42)
- Added –♠Vami _IV†♠ 04:18, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

General comments

No stability concerns are present in the revision history
One picture (map) that is in the public domain and is relevant to the article
Earwig score is good at 9.9%

Putting on hold now, ping me if there are any questions. — Ghost River 23:25, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@GhostRiver: Addressed the above. I've since writing the article acquired some more materials for #Aftermath about, well, the aftermath of the fire. Should I add them in now or would you like for me to refrain for now, and keep this review short? –♠Vami _IV†♠ 04:22, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Vami IV: The article is is short enough that I wouldn't mind if you added them in and then I can take a quick look! — Ghost River 13:35, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@GhostRiver: OK, done, and all in one revision. –♠Vami _IV†♠ 03:38, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Vami IV: All the new stuff looks great, happy to pass now! — Ghost River 14:59, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

)

... that the Sawmill Fire of 2017, which burned more than 45,000 acres, was started at a gender reveal party? Source: Border Patrol Agent’s Gender-Reveal Party Sparked Arizona Fire, Lawyer Says

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Rex Julius

Improved to Good Article status by Vami IV (talk). Self-nominated at 23:34, 4 September 2021 (UTC).[reply]

Y New enough.
Y Long enough.
Y Sourced enough.
Y Neutral enough (although some of the coverage is a bit spectacular).
Y New enough.
Y No copyvio detected.
Y Pictures are good and clear and illustrative and free-as-in-freedom.
? Some minor copy issues:

I dunno what MOS says about always capitalizing "Federal" (not a big deal to me either way).
"The video brought the fire back into the public conscious, resulting in both Dickey and the concept of gender reveal parties." - weird dangling sentence fragment.

Oops! I've fixed that now. –♠Vami _IV†♠ 00:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"was the first wildfire known to be ignited by a gender reveal party,[42] but was not the last, as it was succeeded in 2020 by the El Dorado Fire in California, which ignited more public outrage." Either this is accidental, in which case it should be fixed, or deliberate, in which case it's pretty clever, (but still a little potentially confusing).

Replaced the second "ignited" with "sparked". –♠Vami _IV†♠ 00:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

? I hate to niggle about wording in the hook on an otherwise acceptable nomination, but "started by a gender reveal party" seems somewhat incorrect to me (since this implies that setting vegetation on fire was a part of the schedule for the party, or somehow instrumental to it taking place). It feels like it would be more accurate to say it was "started by an accident at a gender reveal party", or even "started at a gender reveal party".

Changed to "at a". –♠Vami _IV†♠ 00:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from these couple issues, I think this passes. jp×g 00:36, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

jp×g, are you satisfied with the edits made? Please return when you can to continue your review. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:44, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The first extremely online wildfire, I suppose. This looks good to go.

jp×g 01:14, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

T:DYK/P4

Nice...but...

Good, interesting article; nicely done. Just one thing, and it may be me being obtuse or unobservant, would it be possible to indicate (perhaps on the infobox map) where the fire started and which way it spread. I've looked, tried to work it out, but as far as i have seen there isn't even a wind direction linked with its reported speed, which would at least give an idea of how it spread. I've tried to visualise it from the place names mentioned, but several aren't on the map, and i can't get the spread clear in my mind. It is a small point, but one which would, i think, improve the article. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 10:13, 24 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. As the author of the article, I can tell you that it generally spread (and rather rapidly) from west to east. Were someone to be kind and knowledgeable enough to fashion a map, I'd ask for it to be a .gif and update every eight to twelve hours or so. I was lucky to have the one in-progress map of the fire (pulled it from a government PDF). –♠Vamí _IV†♠ 11:05, 24 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty sure that there's a place to request maps; i'll scout around and see if i can remember where i've seen it in the past. BTW, i love that in a lower section you don't know why it was given the name; funny witness to our varying depth of knowledge and reliance on sources. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 08:12, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One can request a map here, though it looks a bit complicated for a non-tech editor such as myself. Or, it seems, it is possible to use a template ~ {{Reqmap}} ~ on this page to do so. Either way, we'd need to know just where on the present map it started, i think. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 10:36, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Precision

Currently, the first line says "46,991 acres (190 km2)". Infobox even says "46,991 acres (19,017 ha; 73.423 sq mi)". Obviously that exact acre number is from source 28, but still: overly precise. Theis article also has five-digit precision elsewhere.

In general, as the TFA-blurb does, this precision is either not in place, or not even correct (how measured?). I propose to change into |sigfig=3, so 47,000 acres (19,000 ha; 73.4 sq mi). Also, common units like ha and sqmi do not require a link. (|lk=off then) DePiep (talk) 13:32, 24 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology

Great article, very interesting (and amusing) read. But I'm left with one question, why is it called the "Sawmill Fire"? cityuser (talk) 20:15, 24 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have absolutely no clue. InciWeb nor any of the news sources I consulted had anything to say on the matter. –♠Vamí _IV†♠ 23:55, 24 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not that it's easily citable, but I was curious about this. Lifting the coordinates (which usually are the same as the initial dispatch location, i.e close to the ignition point) from InciWeb and checking them on Google Maps indicates that the fire started in West Sawmill Canyon. Penitentes (talk) 03:39, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. Figures. It's a shame no RS noted this, at least as far as I'm aware. Maybe Bill Gabbert did? –♠Vamí _IV†♠ 08:10, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Land ownership

National Forests and National Grasslands are US Government Property. They are administered by USDA Forest Service. 76.190.164.162 (talk) 23:26, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]