ARIZONA—Navajo County last week celebrated hard won gains in the decade-long effort to protect fire-prone communities. An effort to save the timber industry in the White Mountains and thin overgrown forests has doubled the annual acres thinned while skirting the edge of financial disaster, government relations director Rochelle Lacapa told the supervisors at its last meeting. Navajo County Supervisor Jason Whiting currently heads the Northern Arizona Counties Association, which has taken the lead in saving the struggling timber industry and keeping forest-restoration efforts alive. The Apache Sitgreaves National Forests now hand out contracts for thinning projects in the White Mountains that cover about 16,000 acres annually. A decade ago, the White Mountains Stewardship Program managed to thin about 8,000 acres per year, while receiving a Forest Service subsidy of about $3,000 to $5,000 per acre. That effort is widely credited with saving Alpine and perhaps Springerville from the Wallow Fire.