Wildfire Today

News and opinion about wildland fire

Wildfire Today

Tag: New Mexico

Former inmate firefighters establish forestry company

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 7 Comments on Former inmate firefighters establish forestry company
All Around Forestry
All Around Forestry photo

Former inmates that acquired skills while they were incarcerated are making use of that training and experience in the woods of New Mexico.

Lawrence Jaramillo and Joshua Melendrez became qualified as wildland firefighters and chain saw operators while serving time in Los Lunas prison. The Inmate Workers Camp program (IWC) taught them the basics of wildland firefighting.

After they spent three years in prison the two of them formed a private company, All Around Forestry LLC.

I talked with Mr. Jaramillo Friday just after the final inspection was completed on the largest project they have worked on since the company was issued a business license in November. On the 13-acre job the company’s six employees thinned dog hair thickets, removed some large trees, and otherwise reduced hazardous fuels around structures at the Ponderosa Christian Camp in the Jemez Mountains. He said they have submitted bids on other projects that they hope to hear from soon.

Mr. Melendrez told us, “The cool thing about it is that every single one of our employees with us are wildland fire certified as well,” he said. “We all have done the program. We all went through as ADs for New Mexico State Forestry [after we got out of prison] — went on fires and fought fires with each other for quite some time now. We all have the knowledge of what needs to be done, and to do it thoroughly as well.”

They want to realize what is implied in the company’s name, All Around Forestry LLC, and hope to provide additional services such as a 20-person crew and a fire engine.

All Around Forestry
All Around Forestry photo

Below is an excerpt from an article at KOAT:

For these men it’s about giving people like them a second chance.

“A lot of people are happy and proud to see, I guess, a success story,” Melendrez said. “We owe a lot of it to IWC but it’s also our own mindset to be better for ourselves.”

“They’ve been doing an amazing amount of work, they’ve gotten an amazing amount done,” Ponderosa Christian Camp board director Craig Mathews said. “We hope this is just a spring board for them, and that they’re very successful in the projects they get awarded in the future.”

Not only is it an opportunity to grow, but also a chance to go at life a different way this time.

“We did wrong in the past but that’s not us anymore, we’ve changed our lives completely,” Melendrez said.

Jaramillo said they are looking for other clients to do business with, as well as other former inmates who want to join the company.

“Fire is inevitable”

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 1 Comment on “Fire is inevitable”
tree density wildfires exclusion
A screengrab from a video below illustrating how the number of trees per acre can increase if fires are excluded from an area.

In the first two in a series of 12 videos produced by the Santa Fe National Forest in Northern New Mexico, Fuels Program Manager Dennis Carril discusses the inevitability of vegetation fires and how fuel, standing trees and deep layers of litter, can build up as a result of fire exclusion. Each video is less than three minutes long.

The videos are “unlisted” on YouTube, however they have been promoted on Twitter by @SantafeNF and @DOIWildlandFire.

Pine Lodge Fire reaches Capitan Peak

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags ,

The fire is 16 miles east of Capitan, New Mexico

Pine Lodge Fire Mopup
Firefighters mopup near a highway on the Pine Lodge Fire. Uploaded to InciWeb July 3, 2019.

The Pine Lodge Fire reached Capitan and Sunset Peaks yesterday and is visible on the south side of the Capitan Mountain Range and from Hwy 380 and Hwy 70. Low to moderate fire behavior will continue due to outflow winds from thunderstorms, but due to higher humidities and lack of fuel, minimal fire growth in expected.

The 14,783-acre  fire continues to burn on the north and south sides of the Capitan Mountains in the wilderness area. Fire activity is minimal near containment lines and continues to consume unburned pockets of fuel within the lines, but all fire lines are holding well.

The fire was reported June 19 and is now 16 miles east of Capitan, New Mexico.

Crews continue to patrol and mop-up along fire lines as needed. Fire activity is being monitored in the Copeland Canyon and Peachtree Canyon drainages to keep the fire from moving west. The fire may continue to creep further into the Wilderness. Rehabilitation work from suppression activity is ongoing.

There are 145 suppression and support personnel remaining with the Pecos Type 3 Incident Management Team. Additional cooperating and assisting organizations include State of New Mexico, Lincoln County Sheriff Department, NM State Police and Otero County Electric Coop.

(Some of the text above is from InciWeb)

Pine Lodge Fire 3-d map
3-D map of the Pine Lodge Fire at 10:33 p.m. MDT June 30, 2019. Looking north.
Pine Lodge Fire map
Map of the Pine Lodge Fire at 10:33 p.m. MDT June 30, 2019.

Type 2 Incident Management Team ordered for the Pine Lodge Fire in New Mexico

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 2 Comments on Type 2 Incident Management Team ordered for the Pine Lodge Fire in New Mexico

It is 18 miles east of Capitan, NM

Map Pine Lodge Fire southwest New Mexico
Map showing the location of the Pine Lodge Fire in southwest New Mexico. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite at 1:26 p.m. MDT June 21, 2019.

The Pine Lodge Fire is burning on the north end of the Smokey Bear Ranger District, Lincoln National Forest in Southwest New Mexico. It is 18 miles east of Capitan and 3 miles northwest of Arabela. A Type 3 Incident Management Team is currently engaged, and a Type 2 Team has been ordered. (See the map, above, of the Pine Lodge Fire)

Our very unofficial estimate of the size, based on heat detected by a satellite at 1:26 p.m. MDT on June 21, is that it has burned approximately 1,800 acres. It was spreading rapidly Friday afternoon pushed by a southwest wind.

Satellite photo smoke Woodbury and Pine Lodge Fires
Satellite photo showing smoke from the Woodbury and Pine Lodge Fires at 5:01 p.m. MDT June 21, 2019.

The strategy is to suppress the fire. It is burning off Forest Service Road 130 near Boy Scout Mountain in extremely rough, rocky terrain with grass, pinyon-juniper, and mixed conifer vegetation. Firefighters will continue to assess and engage this fire, taking into consideration public and firefighter safety as the number one priority.

The area is under a Red Flag Warning until 8 p.m. Friday for extreme fire weather. A weather station at the Sierra Blanca Regional Airport, 18 miles to the southwest, recorded a high Friday afternoon of 83 degrees, 10 percent relative humidity, and winds out of the southwest at 15 to 25 mph with gusts up to 40. The forecast for Saturday calls for 87 degrees, RH of 8 percent, and southwest winds at 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon.

Red Flag Warnings
Red Flag Warnings, updated at 10 a.m. MDT June 21, 2019.

Fire at Portales, New Mexico burns four structures

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags
map 267 Fire Portales New Mexico
Map showing the location of the 267 Fire (the orange dots) near Portales, New Mexico at 2:18 p.m. MDT April 10, 2019. Click to enlarge.

A wildfire that started 18 miles southwest of Clovis, New Mexico burned into the west side of Portales destroying at least four structures Wednesday afternoon. The “267 Fire” was reported at about 12:15 p.m. south of Highway 267 between Floyd and Portales during during extremely dry, windy conditions — 82 degrees, 5 percent relative humidity, and west to northwest winds of 30 to 40 mph gusting at 45  to 54 mph.

Officials established evacuation shelters at First Baptist Church and the Portales Memorial Building, in Portales.

The fire was contained late in the afternoon. Firefighters estimated the size at approximately 1,000 acres, but our very unofficial calculation using heat detected by a satellite shows it to be over 3,000 acres.

It was also very windy in Albuquerque, New Mexico Wednesday:

Truck rollover, Aragon Fire in New Mexico

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 1 Comment on Truck rollover, Aragon Fire in New Mexico

Above: Photo of the truck after rolling over on the Aragon Fire, on the Santa Fe National Forest, in New Mexico; from the report.

In searching through the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned website looking for information about a dozer transport truck that rolled over while it was carrying a dozer on the Cougar Creek Fire in Washington, I ran across a few accidents we previously had not reported on. This is one of them.

On July 16, 2018 a four-door pickup truck slid off a rain-slicked road and rolled over. The accident occurred on the Aragon Fire, on the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico. Below is an excerpt from the Rapid Lesson Sharing report:

…Two District fire personnel were driving Truck #1168 from the Aragon Fire to the Staging Area.

[Road] NFSR 505 contains a narrow section where the road is elevated above the natural drainage. Erosion had created a depression on the right side of the road in this narrow section.

The driver steered the vehicle to the left side of the road here to miss the eroded area. The vehicle began to slide off the road and over the embankment. The vehicle rolled completely over, coming to rest upright in the bottom of the drainage.

Several Forest Service employees witnessed the vehicle rollover. The driver and passenger exited the vehicle under their own power. An EMT arrived on scene less than five minutes after the accident. The EMT examined the individuals. While neither had visible injuries, both individuals were shaken-up and complained of soreness in their neck area.

For precautionary reasons, these two went to a local hospital that evening to be examined. Both were released within two hours…