Oak Creek Canyon is closed north of Slide Rock State Park due to a working fire.
Emergency responders are turning back vehicles at the entrance to the canyon near the Sedona Arts Center.
The Slide Fire is located in Oak Creek Canyon just north of Slide Rock State Park and burning northward, up the canyon into places such as West Fork and Harding Point. As of Monday, June 2, the fire had burned more than 21,200 acres — an area the size of Manhattan — sending smoke into the Verde Valley. The fire is the worst in the history of the Coconino National Forest.
No structures have been burned, although more than 300 are threatened. The fire nearly reached structures near Pine Flats.
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At its peak on May 26, resources include approximately 1,230 personnel, 36 crews, 15 Hotshot crews, 51 engines, three air tankers, nine helicopters, two air attack and other resources. As of June 2, personnel had dropped to fewer than 200, as the fire was 90 percent contained.
Christopher Fox Graham is the managing editor of the Sedona Rock Rocks News, The Camp Verde Journal and the Cottonwood Journal Extra. Hired by Larson Newspapers as a copy editor in 2004, he became assistant manager editor in October 2009 and managing editor in August 2013. Graham has won awards for editorials, investigative news reporting, headline writing, page design and community service from the Arizona Newspapers Association. Graham has also been featured in Editor & Publisher magazine. He lectures on journalism and First Amendment law and is a nationally recognized performance aka slam poet. Retired U.S. Army Col. John Mills, former director of Cybersecurity Policy, Strategy, and International Affairs referred to him as "Mr. Slam Poet." In January 2025, the International Astronomical Union formally named asteroid 29722 Chrisgraham (1999 AQ23) in his honor at the behest of Lowell Observatory, citing him as "an American journalist and longtime managing editor of Sedona Red Rock News. He is a nationally-recognized slam poet who has written and performed multiple poems about Pluto and other space themes."
