The Arizona Republic tells the story of the Clay Springs Renegades:
CLAY SPRINGS - This is a story about a town that felt it had to break the law to save itself.It makes you wonder how the folks in Clay Springs are going to react to Rural Cleansing.
At the height of the "Rodeo-Chediski" fire, when the destruction of the town seemed imminent, local members of the Pinedale-Clay Springs Volunteer Fire Department disobeyed federal fire commanders and made a stand in their back yard.
They slipped past Department of Public Safety roadblocks and fought the fire with bulldozers, chainsaws and hoses, in direct defiance of an order to retreat.
The 26 "Clay Springs Renegades," as they came to be known, plowed seven miles of unauthorized firebreaks through National Forest land, deputizing anybody in town who knew how to use heavy equipment. Several heated arguments and near-fistfights with federal officials failed to change their minds.
By the fire's end, only three houses had been lost in Clay Springs. Nobody was injured.
For many in this high plateau town, it was more than a firefight, it was a classic rural Western story writ large. The successful wildcat effort seemed to highlight the strength and ingenuity of the American commoner against the forces of nature and bureaucracy.
The Clay Springs rebellion also emerged out of an Arizona frontier culture that prizes local initiative and has long viewed federal land management policies with suspicion.
