In late August 2022, after several days of heavy rain, one of the Catalina Foothills' busiest east-west roads lost part of its shoulder. Esperero Wash had cut under the pavement on Sunrise Drive until the shoulder caved in and left a hole. Pima County closed the road between Barrasca Avenue and Via Umbrosa on Aug. 20, according to the Arizona Daily Star. A local teacher told KGUN that Sunrise was her daily route to work. She decided to go down to Kolb Road instead, then found Kolb "packed with construction."
If you live in Ventana Canyon, that stretch of Sunrise is part of your commute. The Star placed the crossing between North Kolb Road and North Sabino Canyon Road, so anyone heading west from Kolb drives over it. It's also the spot that put drivers through a 25-mph detour for most of 2026. The county called that project finished on Sept. 25.
That road work was the last stage of the Bighorn Fire, which burned in the Santa Catalinas in the summer of 2020 and changed what comes down Esperero Wash when it rains.
The Wash Changed Before the Road Gave Way
The Bighorn Fire burned on the mountain, several miles above Sunrise Drive. What it changed was downstream. During the fire, Pima County warned that losing vegetation and altering the soil in the burn area could increase runoff and erosion. The result would be faster, bigger flows carrying ash, mud and plant debris. The county said those conditions applied to washes running out of the Coronado National Forest into Oro Valley and the Catalina Foothills. It also warned that flows could overtop their banks and damage areas outside the mapped flood limits.
That risk showed up while the fire was still burning. On the evening of July 15, 2020, KOLD reported a fast, black, debris-filled flow moving through Cañada del Oro Wash. The Flood Control District official KOLD interviewed named Ventana and Sabino canyons among the areas the county was watching.
At Esperero Wash, the change kept going for years after the fire was out. Josh Orth of Pima County Project Design & Construction explained it to KVOA:
"The runoff that's hitting the mountain tends to accumulate and build volume and cause soil erosion."
KVOA reported that the fire changed runoff patterns and sent more sediment and debris through the wash. The two small culverts under Sunrise couldn't handle the extra flow, which made it more likely that water would spill over the road.
What the 2022 Storm Did
The 2022 closure was the first sign drivers saw. In KGUN's account, some neighbors had lived in the area for more than a decade and said they had never seen anything like it. "I've seen lots of storms come in every year and this is the heaviest I've seen it," one resident told the station. Two boys walking with their father that evening said many of the trees along the wash were gone and their trail had been swept away.
Pima County DOT sent traffic to Kolb Road and Sabino Canyon Road. Annabelle Valenzuela, a support services division manager at the department, told the Star that the shoulder and some of the pavement were eroded and that the county was "still assessing repairs and monitoring the weather."
The road reopened quickly. The county said Sunrise would reopen by 5 a.m. Friday, Aug. 26, 2022, and that permanent repairs would wait until monsoon season was over. Patching the shoulder brought traffic back. It didn't change how much water and debris the wash could carry under the road. That needed a bigger project, and it took a different source of money.
Why a Forestry Agency Paid for a Road
The bill went to fire money. The $2.7 million culvert replacement was fully funded by the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, KVOA reported. Pima County's January 2026 PCFYI newsletter said directly that the project would "help solve an issue that dates back to the catastrophic Bighorn Fire."
The funding source tells you how the agencies involved saw the problem. As far as the state was concerned, the wash under Sunrise Drive was still recovering from the fire six years after the flames were out.
Orth gave a second reason the old culverts no longer worked. "In addition to the culverts being undersized, our design criteria has evolved with time. Climate change has impacted us where our storms are more intense," he told KVOA. So the culverts were too small for both the extra debris coming off the burn scar and today's harder storms.
The concern wasn't limited to monsoon season. A Catalina Foothills resident told KVOA that a "big melt" a couple of years earlier had damaged a few houses in the neighborhood. When the wash fills, the resident said, "it will cross the Sunrise street." That's one neighbor's memory, but it suggests the wash can run high in winter as well as summer.
Eight Months, Both Sides of the Road
For drivers, the project mostly meant a long stretch of detour driving. Here's how it went, based on the county's own notices:
- Jan. 5, 2026. Construction began.
- Jan. 27, 2026. Traffic shifted to the north side of Sunrise. The county had announced the shift the day before, naming Southern Arizona Paving as contractor and late summer as the expected finish. Drivers used a 25-mph two-lane detour that ran under overhead wires with 15 feet of minimum clearance.
- April 13, 2026. A county traffic bulletin moved all traffic, pedestrians included, to the south side of Sunrise, still on the 25-mph detour. Cars and bicycles shared the temporary road, and flaggers managed access. The bulletin expected the road to reopen in July or August.
- Sept. 25, 2026. Pima County Transportation announced in its PCFYI newsletter that the project was complete.
The work ran about a month past the July-to-August reopening estimate in the April bulletin. Construction overlapped one full monsoon season, so the new crossing hasn't yet been tested by a summer storm season.
What Sits Under Sunrise Now
The swap was two undersized corrugated metal culverts out and six concrete box culverts in. The county's completion notice put it in one line: "Sunrise Drive is ready for next year's monsoon." It described the project as one meant to make "the busy Catalina Foothills road safer during the rainy season."
That links this crossing to a pattern Foothills residents already know. When Finger Rock Trail closed this summer, the fire behind it had started in the middle of monsoon season. Closer to home, the Ventana Canyon Trail runs on its own flood calendar, and no one posts a sign for it. On the Catalinas, fire and water work as one system. Esperero Wash connects that system to a road that thousands of Ventana Canyon trips use.
For your daily drive, the change is mostly out of sight. The lanes are back where they belong. The flaggers and the 25-mph detour are gone. The crossing between Barrasca Avenue and Via Umbrosa looks like any other low spot on Sunrise. Under the pavement, six concrete box culverts now replace the two corrugated metal ones, built for the heavier, debris-filled flows the wash has carried since 2020. The first real test comes with the 2027 monsoon.
I keep track of projects like this one because they affect how the Ventana Canyon corridor works day to day. If you'd like to talk about what's changing around your part of the Foothills, from road work to washes to the routes your neighbors depend on, Daniel Sotelo is glad to help. Let's connect.
